


Blinding

by ChrysanthemumDeceit



Series: paroxysm [1]
Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Reincarnation AU, Smut, WayV - Freeform, god of Sleep Dejun, human reader, nct - Freeform, the good ol slow burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:22:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24141265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChrysanthemumDeceit/pseuds/ChrysanthemumDeceit
Summary: Maybe he was glad you could never remember his face. Maybe it was the cause of his melancholia. He’d watched you forget hundreds of times before, yet something about this version of you seemed deadset on holding onto the past.
Relationships: Xiao De Jun | Xiao Jun/Reader
Series: paroxysm [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742119
Kudos: 11





	Blinding

**i.**

It was another rainy afternoon, another autumnal drizzle bringing down the colored leaves, releasing the true essence of the season into the air. There was something nostalgic about the way that decaying leaves smelled, maybe it was from his childhood? Probably not, no- it couldn’t be because it reminded him of the day he first met you, the first day he met the real you. A scowl now, as he gazes towards your visage, standing in front of him as you toyed with your phone case. The plastic around the edges worn away and discolored from endless use, you never used to be this unkempt. Dejun preferred thinking of anything but the past, yet nothing ever felt as satisfactory as it. The neon lights of the shops lining the street reflected off the pooling water on the road and sidewalks in long stripes. It was only four o’clock, but the night crept ever so surreptitiously into the fall air. You were wearing a yellow raincoat, bright and outstanding as you waited outside of the small coffee shop, backpack in tow as you’d presumably just come from the nearby campus.

Whenever a storm rolled through, Dejun thought of you. Not because of the turbulent winds and gales that washed over the sidewalks like they were trying to rip up the concrete from their homes. But of the calmness and petrichor that invaded the area like4 a witch’s spell. Watching you walk like a phantom wisp through the onslaught of rain that wept from the heavens, lamenting some loss that was yet unbeknownst to you, he feels a mourning pang reverberate around his rib cage with every step you took. Remembering or envisioning, he wasn’t sure if you were real or not this time. Although, it was you who was standing at the bus stop as he took his first step into the dimly lit shop, it was you that started a short conversation in the café as the rain puddled outside, it was you who approached him first and it was you who sat in front of him now asking, “Do I know you from somewhere?” These copies of you haunt him from time to time, figments of an imagination left alone for far too long. At times he played with the idea of this divine punishment, was he meant to atone for the sin of loving too much? Of loving too little?

A hand runs through the dampness of his hair as he shifts in his seat, trying ever so hard to forget about you when the memory of it all clung to him like a bramble on a woolen scarf. Your hooks had latched onto him what felt like eons ago and he was reluctant to ever make his fingers bleed from trying to unnet himself from the core idea of you. “Did we go to middle school together or something?” Voice almost callous, he hates to talk to you like this but you’re never the same person, he was never meant to hold you close again. Contempt was his worst vice, how was he to hold you accountable for the sins of the past when you were nothing but a clean slate? It’s like reliving a tragedy every time his eyes flicker over yours, doe-like and unaware, while his were scrying and hawk-like.

You pause, lost in your thoughts as you roll through the index of faces in your head. “I’m not sure, I moved away when I was fourteen. I’m only back for school now.” You give your name, and he offers his after a moment of taut silence. Name evocative you’re unsure why. It rings around your head like a curse of sickly-sweet nothings, a yearning for a name you’ve never once had leave your lips. “It’s nice to meet you,” Pleasantry dripping from your lips like a saccharine ichor he nods away your attempt at a brief handshake. Falling back into the plush booth, your finger traces along the grains of wood of the tabletop as you eye him over. Dyed blond hair and unassuming, you can’t pinpoint his eye color as it seems to be constantly shifting. A trick of the light.

Someone calls out to you, both your and his eyes trailing to find another college kid, Dejun thinks it’s most likely one of your friends, waving in your direction. You recognize him as an acquaintance from your freshman year biology course, Wong Yukhei. Every time Dejun hears your name spoken aloud it mystifies him, he’d think it was never the same, but every reincarnation of his torment took the form of you. An almost carbon copy but the outliers only remained in your personality and perception of the world. Yukhei talks with you briefly, cordoning Dejun off from the conversation until the new arrival walks off to grab his order from the counter.

“Ah, that’s my bus,” Head turned to the window he can’t help but want to capture the image of your profile as you look through the precipitation falling down the panes, towards the bus stop he’d passed on his way here. Although, it isn’t you. It can’t be. Not the real you, anyways. “Will I see you at the club fair?” You’re standing now and he glances over as you begin to hurriedly gather your things, searching and emptying your coat pockets as you look for your bus pass.

“I don’t really go to school events, so probably not.” Shoulders shrugging, he gestures to the tabletop, where your phone was concealing the small slip of thick paper. “Why do you ask?”

“I know you from somewhere,” Rain jacket zipping, a determined look on your face as you begin to head towards the exit. “I just don’t know where yet, Xiao Dejun.” The way his name exits your lips is more viscerally effective than he’d ever though possible. It hits him like a train, there’s a flicker of worry on his brow but he tries his best to conceal it. Nothing good ever came of trying to get close to you, he’d had decades to learn that. Before he can protest, you’re gone with a short wave, running out to the bus, flailing your arms in the air to signal to the bus driver you were trying to board.

A frown playing on his lips as you leave, a gentle push of his glasses up the bridge of his nose as a shaky, hesitant breath escapes his lips. Maybe a part of him wished that you were actually one of the imaginary versions he liked to conjure up from time to time, but a part of him felt undeniably anxious. Like Tantalus, that horrid figure, Xiao Dejun sits abysmally in between longing and deserting, serving this purgatorial sentence in the mortal realm until his punishment was deemed conclusive. If he had any standing left in the world above, he just may have thought to incur some type of intangible wrath on whoever sentenced him to his own personal hell. Days passed in the blink of an eye, it seemed, yet it was an eternity spent wandering the earth looking for a reprieve from this affliction. Dejun returns to his coffee, a sinking feeling in his stomach that this may be one of the harder reincarnations for you to live through.

**ii.**

The winding, rickety staircase of his almost dilapidated apartment building acts as a small comfort to Dejun. Built in the 1950’s on the eve of a changing world it has lived through more history than the tenants that dwelled inside of its abundance of rooms. Well, more history than most of its tenants. Rough and cool metal underneath his fingertips as he ascends the tall steps, humming to himself as he counts the floors up to five. The elevator in the building had stopped working in the early 90’s, much to his chagrin but he’d rather take the stairs than the condemned death trap. Maybe he should make that call into management to get it fixed.

As he takes the short few steps to his apartment from the stairwell, he notices the curls of upturned paint dotting the bottom of the complex’s walls. The sweltering heat of the summer prior, along with the humidity of the seasonal rain had caused it to upturn. It was like that in his apartment as well, the now dried chips of pantone green pooling at the baseboards in certain areas of his living quarters. He’d been meaning to sweep them up and repaint them for a while now, clean up his mess of an apartment and move somewhere else to be haunted by you. Dejun had been telling himself this for years but rarely ever made moves to act on it, some sadistic part of himself liked to indulge in the past, even if it was literally crumbling around him.

Elvish grin adorning an equally elvish face, a deity, known as Wong Kunhang, sits on the the worn, but carefully kept sofa inside the apartment. Dejun feels his presence even before he turns the ancient key into the groaning oak door, pushing it open to only have his day met with another familiar face from his past.

“Why are you here?” Dejun questions as he steps through the threshold, only turning to lock the door before facing his guest once more. “More so,” the key twirls in his fingers as he fiddles with it, a nervous habit, “how did you get into my apartment?”

“I can’t stop by to see an old friend? How long has it been, a decade? Two?” Hands brushing against the soft green velveteen fabric of the sofa, Kunhang pushes himself up with little effort. Graceful as it may be, Dejun knows to watch him with a careful eye, whenever this friend liked to make an appearance something always went askew. Be it that he was a minor god of mischief, it wasn’t to be unexpected, but it wasn’t always welcome. “Besides, it was awfully negligent of you to keep your door unlocked, wasn’t it?” Another mischievous grin as Dejun’s grip tightens on the gold-gilded key locked in his fingers.

The key now hung upon a hook by the door, Dejun strides into his apartment, shrugging off his jacket and throwing it onto the nearest armchair. “Try almost a century. There weren’t phones everywhere the last time I saw you.” A shake of his head, “I can’t believe you would break into my apartment, what if my neighbors saw you?”

“Who, the little old lady who can barely see two feet in front of her?” Kunhang shrugs, eyes glancing over to the water from the raincoat now soaking into the cream-colored fabric of the armchair before returning to Dejun’s scandalized gaze. “Anyway,” A sigh as he holds up his hands to try and add dramatic effect to his verbiage, “I have a feeling that you’re not going to have to live like this any longer.”

“The last time you had a ‘feeling’,” Air quotes raised emphatically as Dejun spoke, “You said that Amelia Earhart would circumnavigate the globe faster than any man. She disappeared, Kunhang.”

“Thank you, o great somnolent being, for your impeccable memory. But to be fair it was a gross miscalculation on my part,” his hands releasing from their static position he begins to move towards the small kitchen. “I heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, who also heard it from a friend that your time’s almost up.” A shake of the head and prideful expression telling Dejun that Kunhang wants him to be thankful for the information.

Hopes elevated, Dejun tries to quell the rising anxiousness in his stomach by brushing past the other and reaching up into the cabinet above the sink for a glass. “I want to believe you, I really do. But why so suddenly? There hasn’t been any change.”

“I don’t know,” shoulders shrugging Kunhang’s eyes linger on the glass as Dejun fills it with cool water from the tap. “You’re really acclimated, aren’t you?”

“What am I supposed to do?” Glass set down with an audible clink, a sigh escapes his lips. “I’ve been living like this for so long I’m forgetting who I ever was, what I ever was.”

Kunhang laughs, hearty and guttural to the point that Dejun notices him wipe away the beginnings of a tear from the corner of his eye. “It’s only been what, four, five centuries of pining over a girl?” His hands fall to his sides as he leans against the countertop of the kitchen, “Are you still not over her?”

“I have tried,” a flicker of a grimace on Dejun’s lips, “I have tried, and I have failed to stop loving her even if she’ll never be the same again. The best I can do is distance myself to her periphery where she sees me as nothing more than a passing face, do you know how much that pains me to do, Kunhang? To live in remembrance of someone who died on my behalf hundreds of years ago?”

“The gods have never been kind, Dejun. But we already knew that,” Kunhang’s demeanor takes a turn for the solemn, Dejun would rather not bring up the other’s own turmoil at his behest.

An offer of an empathetic smile as Dejun looks mournfully out of the window above his sink. “I don’t know whether to be joyful or flippant with what you’ve told me. In all honesty I’m a little scared.” The rain weeps, a continuous bombardment onto his sill.

“I think I’d be a little worried if you weren’t,” Kunhang hops onto the counter, sitting atop it as he continues, “Have you seen her again?”

“Today,” A sigh, a turn of his head as his fingers slide on the rim of the porcelain sink. “It was strange though, when she saw me she had this look in her eye as if she knew who I was.” Dejun would never relay that it had felt like his heart had dropped fifty floors and the breath knocked from his lungs. You had never done that in any of your past lives.

“Odd,” Kunhang’s hand rests under his chin in fraught contemplation. “What are you going to do?”

Shoulders shrugging as Dejun sighs at him, “Keep my distance as usual. It’s not as if I have any other choice.”

“Are you never going to go after her again?” Hand brought away from his chin, resting atop the counter where he sat.

“Even if I were to pursue her it would never happen, even if her feelings were returned.” Dejun lifts his hands from the sink, standing up and stretching as he tiptoes himself off of the floor. “You know, I found out early on that any attempts to reconcile or prod at her earlier lives made her current one end,” a stifling of a cough, “rather early. I have no need to ruin any more of her lives for my selfishness.”

“What a gentleman,” Kunhang’s feet land on the ground almost inaudibly. His light-footed abilities had gotten him and Dejun out of more scenarios than he’d like to recount. “I wonder if they really are going to free you from this. I hope they do, for your sake. Your brother misses you.”

A guffaw escaping from Dejun’s throat, “If I remember, it was entirely his fault that I’m here.” A smile eliciting itself from his lips, not out of anger, but more so of disbelief.

“I’m not one to impose myself in familial affairs,” Yes, he was. “But he really does feel sorry for what he did to you,” Now Kunhang begins walking towards the foyer. “I hope my information could help you out, but I should leave you to your work- homework? Whatever it is you’ve decided on doing to yourself.”

“I find it interesting to see how mortal views have changed over time.” Dejun shrugs as he walks behind Kunhang, the younger reaching for the door.

“You’re weird and you’ve always been weird,” Kunhang sighs before offering a hug before his departure. It’s brief but there’s an amicable warmth that pursued Kunhang like a persistent pest. “If you need me, you know where to find me.”

“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” A smirk playing on Dejun’s lips as the other retaliates with a stuck-out tongue. “It was nice seeing you again.”

“You too,” and with that the door shuts behind Kunhang with a soft slam. Dejun turns with a sigh to look around his apartment, questioning the validity of his friend’s words and his own inner tumult with the thought of breaking the cycle. What would happen to you? Would you be gone from the earth and any more versions of you cease to exist? And what of him? He may resign himself back to the Underworld but the charm of mortality and the thought of truly losing you forever would haunt him such as you were now. He was in the thralls of decision making, and it would continue plaguing him throughout the night.

**iii.**

The earth is soft underfoot, the dew clinging to the ends of your dress, slowly weighing you down as you make your way through the foggy morning. Hand wrapped around the hard wood decorating the lantern’s handle your other moves to lift the front of your skirts for more ease of access through the mist. Eyes wandering the clearing around you, you see no other discernible figures to witness your melancholy. A soft fluttering of air escaping your lips as you sit, not caring of the dampness soaking its way upwards from the long grass. Lantern now dimly glowing around the air and creating its own ephemeral ambiance in the open yet closed space of its light, you feel that sullenness of late begin to appear again as you release it from your grasp, letting it sit on the ground beside you. Hair tousled and haphazardly falling around your face you make no move to brush it away when your back falls onto the damp ground.

Your eyes close as you inhale the morning air, wanting nothing more than to be swallowed up by the earth and the moss. Rustling of the grass nearby, you don’t move to look, wondering what sort of beast, human or otherwise, sought to torment you now. “You’ll catch a cold if you stay here moping for so long.” Familiar voice cutting through the fog as the first beams of sunlight begin to peak over the far horizon. It’s calming and condescending, a mixture of concern and friendship dancing along each syllable. You’re not sure if even your best friend had ever spoken to you like that before.

“Can one not be left in solitude with their unhappiness or must I be implored to share it with you too, Dejun?” It was your voice speaking but it felt disassociated with your figure as you lay. Almost as if you were listening to a disembodied you playing throughout the field. You sounded anguished, not angry or upset, grimmer than anything else. Emotions warped within you, appealing to your voice yet abiding by your consciousness, who were you? And Dejun? Why him of all people? The two of you had met once, although you can’t deny he would linger on your mind from time to time since that meeting.

Movement once more as the other moves to sit by you, disrupting the glow of the lantern with a shadow of his own. “You can be alone, but suffering is best in company, isn’t it?” His eyes scan the horizon, squinting at the sun, “Better to bear the burden together.” The same longing from the coffee shop pulsates like a living creature through your veins. Aching to break free and release itself yet you are confused as to its significance, he was a stranger yet here he sat beside you. “What are you doing out here?” He speaks with a tone of disquiet, perplexing you even further as no such courtesy was given during your prior meeting.

“Waiting for the earth to reclaim me,” Eyes closed still, you cannot find the willpower within you to open them, your mouth moving but not of your own volition. You are trapped within yourself. “I am not going back home so that hateful man can sell me off to appease his debtors.”

“Your flairs for the dramatic are unfailingly charming.” He laughs, you hear a rustling but can’t tell what he’s doing. “Do you really believe I’d let him cart you off to some nobody?” It’s when he places his lips atop yours that your independence begins to stir. The kiss is soft, sweet and filled with a longing that you’d never experienced before. The spell is broken, you jolt with a newfound freedom. As if you’ve been electrified by the slightest graze of his lips you recoil out of shock.

Eyes opening to look at the grey sky above, you see Dejun in the corner of your vision, now pulled away from your lying figure. “Do I know you from somewhere?” Voice disembodied no longer, you sit up, facing him in the shroud of the morning haze, a hand moving to your now searing lips, and embarrassed blush creeping up your neck and blooming onto your cheeks. “I knew your voice earlier, but I’ve only met you once?” Brow furrowing as you look him over. Strange, you thought his hair blond earlier, not the tousled black it was now. The lucidity of this dream far more complex and recalling than you’d ever experienced in anything in your life prior. It was as if it was him. And not a dreamed-up version, sitting before you.

A despondency shattering the cheery visage of his face as you speak, it morphs into a lorn semblance of a smile as the light in his eyes seems to dim. “You must be waking up.” Before a chance arises to question him further the ground begins to rumble, opening like a portal to hell as you fall through the spindly cracks appearing like a spider’s web.

You wake with a start, sitting up in your bed as you feel the now cold beads of sweat around your brow begin to fall down the frame of your face. Air frigid, you shiver from the soft wind hitting your bare skin. The smell of an extinguished candle greeting you as you move to step from the bed and close the window you’d left ajar before your slumber; the wind must have quelled the flame. As your hands move to shut the sash you think to your dream. Something within you yearned to return to it but it you couldn’t put your finger on it as to why.

A hand running over your shoulder and upper arm as you try and warm yourself, feet dragging along the floor as you head to the kitchen. It takes a few moments before you’re leaning against the kitchen counter, a steaming cup of tea in your hands.

“You’re up early.” Your roommate’s voice rings out from the front door, you hadn’t heard it open.

A quick jump as you turn to greet her, “Kang Seulgi I swear to god you’re going to scare me to death one day.” The other girl laughs as she slips off her shoes and slings her bag onto a nearby chair. “Where were you?”

“The gym,” Seulgi walks to the kitchen, reaching into the fridge to pull out a pitcher to fill her water bottle.

“At six in the morning?” Quizzical look adorning your face, you couldn’t imagine waking up at such an ungodly hour to jog on a treadmill for thirty minutes.

Seulgi’s shoulders shrug as she brings the now filled bottle to her lips, only responding to you after she’d had her fill, “You’d be surprised at how few people there are.”

“That’s absolutely disgusting,” You shudder and set your now drained cup onto the countertop. “Are you going to head your dance group booth today?”

“Only if Taeyong doesn’t flake on me,” Seulgi lets loose a sigh, you know it was rough on her to run the group, she’d recruited Taeyong to help her out but he’d been stuck in his schoolwork for a while and left her to take the brunt of it all. “But anyways, why are you up so early?”

Still leaning on the counter, you shift ever so slightly, “I just had a weird dream.” Thoughts returning to the dreamscape and its inhabitants, normally you never dreamed of people. If anything, it was difficult for you to dream at all.

“Was it a nightmare?” Seulgi returns to her bag, shifting through its contents as it seemed like she was searching for something.

You think for a moment, looking down to the dregs of tea leaves in the bottom of the cup, “I don’t think so. It felt like a memory, but I know that what happened never actually happened, you know?” Humming to yourself you push off from the counter and move to place the cup into the sink.

“Maybe you should see one of those dream interpreters,” She’s only half-joking, but you wouldn’t put it past her to be suggesting it. Seulgi’s grandmother, or maybe it was great-grandmother, had been a shaman so the girl felt connected to the spiritual side of the world more so than the average person.

A small laugh as you begin to move towards your room, “You know I don’t believe in that sort of stuff. I’ll see you at the fair later.”

**iv.**

The second time that Xiao Dejun sees you, you’re standing in the afternoon sun. It had been almost a week since the last encounter, you playing more on his mind with every day that passed. The light shines through the large glass panes of the school’s main atrium as you stand in front of one of the various booths of the club fair, eagerly handing out fliers detailing the benefits of joining their dance team. He’d never known you to be the dancing type, unless absolutely needed, but then again, this wasn’t you. He lingers on the outskirts of the fair, declining offerings of fliers and knick-knacks meant to draw his attention to different clubs as he walks the perimeter. Backpack slung over his shoulder he thinks about escaping this forced socialization when he catches a figure walk towards you.

It’s Wong Yukhei, tall and lumbering he moves with a sauntering gate as he greets you with a smile. A heated jealousy runs through the core of Dejun as he watches, unwanted but unwavering he breaks his gaze away from the scene. There is no reprieve from his feelings as he now looks to the booths before him that ask if he’s ever played or had an interest in tennis. He hasn’t but it’s drawing him away from you.

When he’s walking away, both from you and the fair he feels a hand fall onto his shoulder. Recoiling backwards as he spins on his heels he’s met with your face. “I thought you didn’t like school events?” There’s a curiosity in your eyes as you look him over, Dejun cannot begin to fathom as to why.

“I was just on my way to class,” Adjusting the right strap of his backpack as he answers. “I thought I’d walk around a little bit before heading in.”

The jostling of a backpack he hadn’t seen you wearing previously as you speak, “I’m on my way to class too, want to walk together?” He was too focused looking at the buttons adorning the front pockets of the maroon colored bag to give a proper response, so all you got was a simple nod of his head. “What class are you going to?”

Your voice pulls him from trying to decipher the random symbols on the bag as the pair of you begin to walk away from the crowded atrium into the winding hallways of the school. “Myths and Legends.” The sound of your shoes echoing around the eerily quiet hallways, only the murmurings from other students walking and the occasional muffled lecture from a nearby classroom filling the void.

“You’re serious?” A gnawing at your lip as you snap your fingers together, “Maybe that’s where I’ve seen you before, I’m in that class too.”

His brow furrows as he looks ahead at the expanse of hallway before the two of you. “I just added the class over the weekend, so I’m not sure that’s it,” The adamant nature of your search for him made him feel even more anxious with every step he took.

“How did you manage to add a class this late into the semester?” You ask, confused as you arrive at the classroom. “The add/drop deadline was at least two weeks ago.”

A simple shrug of his shoulders as he walks into the class, a few students meandering in from other entrances and others already at their seats. The handful of studious attendees already had their laptops and notepads out ready to jot things down, Dejun lets out a little snicker at this as the professor hadn’t even arrived yet. “I had a talk with Professor Schneider, he seemed to think I could catch up on the material in time.” Had he known you were a student in the class he would’ve chosen a different time slot.

As he takes a seat in the far back corner of the classroom, you start to slide past him to take the seat next to him, frowning as you looked around the windowless room. “My friend’s ditching today, would you mind if I sat next to you?”

There’s a reluctance in his voice as he answers with a, “It’s alright.” You can’t see his hands clench together underneath the desk as he feels his palms begin to perspire. Turning to your bag you pull out a notepad and an array of pens and highlighters to organize your notes as the professor walked into the classroom, the students who’d been roaming the space finally settling into their seats. Sitting with a sigh you turn your attention to the front of the class, noticing that your seat mate was leaning back in his chair, looking as if he wanted to be anywhere else but here.

“Were you paying attention at all?” Dejun turns at your voice, not noticing that you were beginning to pack up your things. He shifts, stretching his arms. It’s not that he wasn’t paying attention, there was just nothing more he could learn from this class.

“I was,” Responding as he moves to stand, “But to be honest Amaterasu and all of her business isn’t exactly my favorite thing to worry about.” The professor’s droning tone couldn’t help him get immersed either, but he doubted it would’ve helped regardless.

“I thought it was pretty cool,” you sigh as you zip your bag and stand, slinging it onto your shoulder and sliding your free arm under the unused strap. “But do you want to be partners for the upcoming project?”

A sinking feeling in his stomach. He wants to say no, he has to say no, but fate tempts him ever so cruelly that he can barely find the urge to stop himself from saying ‘yes’. “What about your friend?”

“If I’m painfully honest she’ll probably drop the class in a week,” You bite the inside of your cheek, it may have been a little rude but Seulgi did skip class today to work the booth. “So, wanna partner up?”

Dejun shifts his weight uncomfortably for a moment. He had to say no. He had to, for both his own sanity and the inevitable. Before he even begins to part his lips in response you hold up your hand, stopping him as you turn and unzip the front pouch of your bag. “I’m just going to take that as a ‘yes’, so I don’t have to interact with anyone else in here,” A nod of affirmation as you extend your phone out to him. “Just give me your number so we can text and see when we’re both free.”

His hand raises, waving the phone away. “I actually don’t have a phone.”

The look of incredulousness on your face almost makes him laugh, “You don’t have a phone? In the twenty-first century?” You shake your head to process it correctly, and to not and try and question him further. “Whatever, are you free on Saturday?”

“I should be.”

“Great. Let’s meet at ten at the library on fifth street to start piecing our project together.” A nod as you expectantly wait for his response.

“Sounds like a plan.” As much as he didn’t want it to be.

**v.**

Hand brushing against the rough, almost stucco wall of the cramped staircase, Dejun pushes himself flat against the side to allow the other patrons of the small library to slip past him. Once the space was cleared completely, he continues his descent, right hand still clutching onto the spine of the threadbare brown leather book he was holding. His thumb runs over the once gold-leafed letters adorning the cover, they were so worn it was hardly legible. But he’d been looking on and off for this book for a while and wasn’t about to let the age of the thing defer him to a newer edition.

“There you are.” A voice from the bottom of the staircase rousing him from his own inner monologue. “I thought you were still on your way, so I already ordered coffee, I hope you like lattes.” You’ve got an impatient tinge to your words, he’d not tried to reach out since your class together earlier in the week, leaving you in limbo.

Dejun freezes at the sight of you, taken aback at your verbiage. How cruel the fates were to align like this again. “I’m sorry,” an apologetic nod as he finishes descending the last few steps, “I’m just going to check this out and head over to the table.” Hand holding up the book as you give him an incredulous look. He can’t stop glancing over your features almost as if he’s getting drunk at the sight of you.

“The table’s over by the window,” You note and head back to your belongings you’d left unattended.

A sigh escaping him, he shouldn’t have to feel like this every time he sees you. It’s unfair but maybe it was another part of his punishment. After taking a moment to collect himself he shuffles towards the checkout kiosk, the elderly lady manning the counter giving him a pleasant smile as he approaches. “Edith Hamilton’s Mythology?” Hand outstretching, she reaches for the book at he offers it to her.

“It’s a classic,” Dejun nods as the book is scanned and his student ID is also swiped. His foot taps almost impatiently as the librarian gives the cover another look over.

“For those who only like one point of view,” She shoots him a quick wink as she passes the book back to him, her fingers bushing lightly against his as it’s handed off. Dejun’s eyes widen at the contact while the woman thinks nothing of it. Stifling a yawn with a closed fist she speaks up again, “That’ll be due in two weeks, charges will start accumulating after then if it’s not returned. Have a good day.”

And with that he turns, tucking the book under his arm as he looks towards the café nestled into the library. He found you a minute or so later, looking at your phone, frowning at some message that’d appeared. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting long.” Dejun apologizes, setting down the book on the tabletop as he sits and looks to you.

“Are you agoraphobic?” You remove the phone from your face and waste no time in interrogating him, leaning in ever so slightly as your elbows rest on the tabletop.

“If I was, would I be here?” Eyes watching the foam of his latte slowly dissipate into the liquid below, “I’m not afraid people or crowds or social interaction, I just don’t need it all the time.” His fingers dance along the rim of the cup as the steam pools under his hand, the wisps causing a thin layer of water to form in his palm. A sigh as he removes it and brushes the condensation off onto the napkin lying beside the mug.

“Can I see what you got?” Nodding towards the ancient book, you don’t wait for a response before you reach for it, gingerly taking its binding into your hands and setting it down in front of you. Finger tracing over thin pages of a book printed long before your time you can’t help but breathe in the scent of history emanating from its pages. There was something comforting about the smell of a book, be it freshly printed or otherwise.

“I think my favorite myth’s Echo and Narcissus.” You staunch the silence after a while, Dejun’s voice is almost low enough that him uttering the word ‘jackass’ after you detail Hera’s torment of the couple is relatively unheard. You explain how tragic is was and how it was much more palatable it was than other myths of the era. Dejun disagrees silently. It’s a lonesome, horrendous tale that ended far worse than the poets of antiquity would ever let you know. “What’s your favorite Greek myth?”

“Orpheus and Eurydice.” Dejun takes no time to answer as he pulls his mug to his lips, the contents burning but he felt no sting from its wrath. It was rather delicious, now that he could savor the taste.

“That’s a little macabre, don’t you think?”

“And yours wasn’t?” Question poising like a cobra as he sets the mug down, “The divine love to punish their mortal counterparts.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s macabre, more evocative of a real relationship than anything. Or a longing for a relationship that could never work,” You wave your hand to dismiss the topic, “Anyways, maybe we can do our project on the pathos of mythology? Or maybe it’s influences on the modern day?”

“What, like how the tragedy of a myth is meant to teach a lesson?” Dejun looks to you, brow peaked as he thinks, “Isn’t that too Aesopic?”

Leaning back into your chair you let out a sigh, “Maybe, but this is a 1000 level course. Schneider can’t expect a whole dissertation about the topic, Dejun.” He notices the anguish hiding itself behind your brow, as the thrumming in his chest becomes more apparent when you speak his name. “I’ve got three other projects due at the end of the semester so if anything, I want this one to be the least stressful of them.”

“I’m sure we can do that,” He nods, picking up his mug and taking a drink out of it. “When do you want to start?”

“I’m free after our class together, what about you?”

Thinking for a moment, he sets down the cup and nods once more, eyes glancing to the nearly empty campus sidewalks outside. “That’s fine.”

“Great,” You smile, “We’ll start then.”

**vi.**

It had snowed early in the morning; light, soft flakes that gathered onto the ground in a light dusting and turned into a more gradual pileup as the earth began to cool. It sat pushed up against his windowsill, slowly creating another barrier between him and the outside world. Dejun was never the one for snow so the weather was reason enough for him to stay at home, bored and warm rather than interested and cold. Although he did like to watch the flakes descend from the sky and gather on the ground, there was something serene about the calmness of the scape it created. The quiet running through the streets as the snow absorbed most sound and the light of the moon reflecting ever so brightly against it when night fell.

Dejun lays on his couch, nose buried into the mythology book he’d gotten a few weeks prior as the sun tries to break through his iced over window. Sure, he’d read the book when it’d first come out in the 40’s, but he found the contents rather endearing, nonetheless. He’s pulled from his reading when three knocks resound around his apartment, the door rattling with each one. At first, he thinks it’s his mind playing tricks on him, people seldom visited him and if they did it was either his neighbor or the postman. A furrowed brow and the setting down of the weathered book, he pushes himself off the green fabric, feet landing with a dull thud as they hit the wooden flooring. He’s quiet in the approach to the entrance way, listening to see if his visitor would leave before he moved to open the door.

A part of him felt like it was Kunhang, maybe he’d reflected and realized that breaking into someone’s abode wasn’t the best way to go about things. He’d been eerily absent for a week or so, normally when he visited, he was there to stay for a while longer than a few weeks. It only takes another second for him to excuse the thought, he’d known the other for far too long to know his ways would never change. What he wasn’t expecting was to open the door and be face to face with you. Cheeks red and nose sniffling, had you walked here? There’s an unbearable ache when he’s around you, a dull stab from a dull knife plunged into his heart from a time long before you knew what, or who, you were. It hurts but he’s become so accustom to its spiteful ways he falls back onto it almost as a comfort. Dejun knows he shouldn’t allow himself to become so indulged on remorse but what else was he going to do after being tossed from the heavens like a lame bird sacrificed so that the others in its brood may survive longer? A bitter bile coating his mouth as he’s too dumbstruck to think of what to say he waits for his thoughts to be interrupted as his lips hang slightly ajar. This palimpsest of you endears and destroys him.

“Did you dye your hair?” Eyes traveling upwards to look at the dark strands, it was a stark contrast to the blond locks you’d seen only days prior.

“A few days ago,” Hand moving upwards as his fingers toy with a few of the strands. Dejun blinks, maybe he was hallucinating that you were here. Several tries to banish you to his imagination later he realizes that it is you standing in front of him, book-bag slung over your shoulder and a few books tucked away under you arms. “How did you get here?”

“I looked you up in the student directory.” A simple shrug of your shoulders as you glance down at the floor, noticing the chipped baseboards and flaking paint. You’d imagined his complex to be one of the nicer ones in the area, not on the verge of dilapidation. It wasn’t that bad though, rough around the edges but there was an immense sense of nostalgia surrounding the place, you’d first felt it once you stepped onto the property.

“The what?” The removal of his hand from his hair as he leans against his open door, he’d never heard of such a thing.

“The student directory. It has all of the student’s addresses on it.” Looking back up to him you see there’s viable confusion coating his features.

“I don’t remember signing up for that.”

“It’s kind of a thing you have to opt out of, you’re put into the system if you don’t say anything about you not wanting your information out there.” Maybe you’d felt a little guilty about looking him up, but he didn’t have a cellphone or any other means of contact. You might’ve been able to wait until class in a few days to talk about your project, but you were getting impatient.

“That’s a little sleazy, don’t you think?” Brow furrowed as he stands in fraught contemplation, somewhat disgusted by the idea of it all. He’d have to remind himself to take him off the directory.

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t have found you otherwise,” Another lackadaisical shrug of your shoulders as you try and peer over Dejun’s frame that was blocking the entrance to his apartment. “Now, can we finally finish this project up? I don’t have any free time in the next week because of my five hundred other things to do.”

Dejun pauses for a moment, jaw clenched as his hand fiddles on the metallic lock on his door handle. An inward sigh, dragging his shoulders down ever so slightly as he opens the door, nodding as he motions you inside. “It’s a little messy, I hope you don’t mind.”

“You know I had a dream about you once, it was really weird.” A scoff as you walk in, already comparing the cleanliness of the apartment to your own. “If this is messy then mine is a pigsty.” Eyes looking at the various pairs of shoes lining the front hallway, “Shoes off or on?”

“Doesn’t matter,” He shakes his head, still caught up on your first statement. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because if you had a dream about me, I’d want to know.” You note as you lean down to help slip your shoes off, moving them with your feet once removed to push them neatly together against the baseboard. 

“That’s not going to happen,” A sigh under his breath as he makes his way further into the apartment, looking around to make sure he didn’t leave anything weird laying out. But it’s not like he had any ancient tomes to decorate the space with anyway.

Frown beginning as you look around his humbled apartment, “That’s rude.” You remove the books from under your arms and put them down on a nearby side table.

“What did you dream about?” He asks as he turns to the kitchen and you walk further into his living room. Mind racing as he can’t fathom what would’ve made you dream of him. He’d only followed you into your dreams and never tried to interfere.

“I was in a field,” You can remember it as vividly as you’d dreamt it, the smell of morning temporarily overcoming you as you continue to move forward, your hand running along the top of the white armchair as you pass. “It was morning and really foggy outside; I was upset, and I don’t know why. I laid down on the ground and then you showed up. Your hair was the color it is now, that just reminded me of it.” Voice echoing around the apartment. You neglect to tell him of the kiss, too embarrassed that your subconscious had dreamed it up. For someone who lived for an eternity, Dejun wasn’t a material person. Of course, he had a few select things he treasured but he kept those locked away, either in the small chest in his bedroom or left with friends so he wouldn’t recall some events as viscerally as he wanted to. It was a vain attempt to forget as you did, as you always did, but he was cursed with an immortal presence and the malediction of memory.

Lip bitten as a hand returns to his hair, contemplating his color choice as he looks through the refrigerator for something remotely edible to offer you. Dejun never ate at home much, if he even ate at all. It’s not like he needed to anyway, no mortal substance would ever sate the appetite of an immortal. Although he does have a hidden assortment of candies in the back of his cupboard, that was one thing he couldn’t help himself to. “That’s strang-” A gasp and the clattering of something from the other room. Dejun’s stomach drops as he almost slams the door onto his fingers out of shock. Brow worried he races to the living room, dreading the scene he might come upon. “What?! What is it?” He could only hope it wasn’t as bad as the time you’d confronted him about his ecclesiastical status back in the late 1700’s. That had terrified him, and he can’t recall a time he’d stepped into a Catholic church since.

He finds you standing with one of the books from his shelf ajar in your hands. Rather than scanning the pages, your eyes were caught on the checkout stamps adorning the back of the cover. “Dejun this was due in nineteen eighty-nine, who’s is this?”

A sigh of relief as the incoming heart palpitations slowed to a normal rhythm, his palms were wet with the slickness of perspiration, he quickly rubs them on his jeans to wash away his worry. It takes him a moment to recuperate, realizing that you hadn’t been burnt to a crisp or turned to ash for realizing who or what he was. “My family has a penchant for taking what isn’t theirs.” While a lie about the book it wasn’t a lie in general.

“And isn’t that the book you checked out when we started the project?” Head nodding to the book atop his coffee table, you sigh. “Most of these are grossly overdue,” a frown as your fingers trace over the spines of the books stacked on his shelf. The air feels heavy, dark, as you move your hand away, turning to look at Dejun.

A sheepish shrug of his shoulders, “It’s for research, I don’t see why I need to have a limited time with it when we’ve got a project to finish.”

Groan escaping from your lips, “You’re everything that’s wrong with libraries.” Maybe you were bitter because someone with the same attitude had stolen kept a book you needed for a research paper a year or two ago.

Dejun lets out a short laugh, “I’ll return it, I promise.” A nod of his head as he pauses for a moment, “Only after we’ve finished our project, of course.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” you point at him, fully serious as you sling your backpack off of your shoulders, “Ready to get to work?”

**vii.**

Shadows dancing along the walls, rising higher and moving more fervently, it seems, as you continue to watch them. It’s almost mesmerizing and distracting enough to pull you away from the musty smell permeating the space behind that of the smoky scent. There’s shelves and shelves of books surrounding you, spines pristine and looking almost untouched. You want to move, walk towards them and look through their pages as a few of them look familiar to you, yet you find yourself unable to move, only gently swaying as you realize this is a dream yet again.

“Are they all as reckless as you?” A fire lit in a hearth that you didn’t recognize but felt a strange connection to. It was warm on your back as the flames dance with a spirited vitality, it’s almost as if they wanted to escape their brick imprisonment, at that moment in time you felt as if you were almost one in the same. “Your… people. Are they all that careless?” Again, the voice speaking was you but not your own. It wasn’t an interrogative question, more confused if anything. If only there were a mirror to see whose body, you were entombed in.

“I can’t speak for every single one of us,” Shoulder shrugging Dejun leans onto the darkened fabric of the armchair he sat in. “But of course, there are a few.”

“Some of you treat us like your playthings. Remember that dryad and Apollo? I read about it the other day.” A frown as you rub your hands together, they were cold, as was the entire room save for the heat emanating from behind you. Had it not been there you guess your breath would come out in puffs of white air every time you spoke.

“She was a nymph, wasn’t she?” A voice speaks up and you turn to see someone running a hand through their hair in confusion, tousling the locks as they think with their brow intently furrowed.

“Tit-for-tat, Kunhang,” You scoff, shifting your weight from foot to foot as it feels like the flames are growing ever more searing against your back. The name is unfamiliar yet rolls off your tongue as if you say it every day. “It doesn’t matter, anyone who isn’t heaven or hell-sent isn’t worthy enough to commend some respect among you all.”

“How slanderous,” A figure in the back of the room speaks, voice deep and unhappy. Even as you tried to break free of yourself you could barely catch the outline of him, shroud in black as if to conceal himself even more from the occupants of the room. “You really should teach her to watch herself.” 

“I think you can be entitled to your own opinion,” Dejun suggests, shooting you a small grin before turning back to the shadowy figure, a grimace taking over his features as he did so. There was something unsettling about it all, it would make the hair on the back of your neck perk up involuntarily had you not been locked away again.

“Heresy aside I think we all have made our own mistakes.” Kunhang waves the other two off as he looks towards you, an amicable smile greeting you as he holds out his hand. “Well, let’s go, I’m sure all of your friends are there already.”

“Of course,” A smile forces its way onto your lips as your hand extends to his. Looping your arm under his as he raises his hand to his mouth in faux embarrassment, a light slap on his shoulder as you laugh at him and begin to walk. You’re about halfway out of the room before you turn to the two left, the shadowy figure still veiled from sight and Dejun watching the two of you leave, “Are you two coming?”

“I’d like to speak with Dejun for a moment,” It responds, deep, too serious for such a scene. Again, that feeling invades you, you almost feel worried for Dejun as the pair of you make your way towards the door, unsure what’s to happen to your friend.

The illusion breaks when you catch something in your peripheral, white, stone and glaring. For a moment you look back to your accompaniment, realizing quickly that he had vanished from your grasp. The shadowy figure had disappeared as well, leaving you alone with Dejun. Instead of initiating conversation, you move to the bust calling out to you, you’re pulled over by an innate curiosity and something else vying for your attention. Fingers tracing the cold marble curves of the bust’s cheeks and up to its brow, you soon realize it’s an almost rudimentary copy of your own visage, “This is me, isn’t it?” Silence, you turn and see that Dejun’s attention is elsewhere, staring into the flames. “Dejun?” He looks almost worried as the light of the fire flickers over his face, an anxiousness radiating from his very being.

As your voice broke in a silent room, he turns to you, a veil of confusion washing over him as he moves to stand. “Aren’t you going with Kunhang?” His hand runs atop the couch as he steps towards you, head tilted as he nears, “This festival only happens every seventy-five years, you might not be around for the next one.”

Something within you twanged, regret, sorrow, anguish? You didn’t know, didn’t want to know. It was like a blanket falling over you as if to smother a flame, “And you will?” Returning your eyes to the marble, wondering why this existed and what you could’ve possibly eaten prior to this to make you dream up such a scenario.

Soft footsteps on the floor as he walks to stand next to you, it’s unexplainable but he was different here than he was in reality, as if he was exuding some sort of aura of calmness when he looked as tormented as you’d ever seen him before. Perhaps it was because this was a dream it feels as such but there’s something more, you know there is but you’re missing pieces to a puzzle much larger than you could ever conjure up. Dejun says nothing as he stands at your side, looking from you to the stone as he too reaches out to trace over it. “You know I will be,” as he speaks your brow furrows. It’s as if he’s speaking in tongues with his elusive and unclear speech. He turns to face you and you to face him, his eyes staring into yours with an odd sense of sadness that you can’t pinpoint. A hand moving to gently caress the side of your face, his fingers cool as they trace atop the side of your cheek as you had done to the statue of yourself. Heart pounding in your chest as his face grows nearer and nearer to yours, his lips barely grazing yours before he pulls away. Eyes widening as some sort of awareness grows and blooms inside of him, understood by the slight shift of his brow. “How do you keep doing this?”

Before you can speak, before you can breathe, before you can blink, you’re awake again. Alone in your room as you stare at the blank ceiling, an icy coldness snaking its way through you even though you’ve got a multitude of blankets covering ever inch of your body. You feel sick to your stomach and a cool sheen of sweat once again coating your forehead.

**ix.**

The air is frigid as you wait outside of the small restaurant, the clouds in the sky sinking ominously overhead as you hope it doesn’t begin to pour while you’re still waiting. “I’m honestly a little surprised you made it out,” The zipper loudly running along its seam as you move to take off the heavy article. Heat lamps around you starting to make everything become a little too toasty for your liking as the sun begins to set.

“Why, because I’m agoraphobic?” Dejun flashes you a small smile as he edges closer and looks up to the sign overhead, it’s a mixture of kanji and hiragana, confusing him ever-so slightly. “Where are we?”

“Because you never seemed interested.” You find yourself looking at him for a moment longer than you should, you hope he’s too caught up in translating to notice your cheeks flush as you turn your head towards the doorway, “Anyway, this is an izakaya style place, I think the group that did the myth on the Kappas are treating us and I’m not one to turn down free drinks and food.”

“You never were,” A sigh under his breath as he looks to you, the red of the neon sign above turning on and cutting through the black of night to illuminate your surroundings.

“Did you say something?” Attention brought upwards by the new light; you squint as you now try to decipher the text. Your Japanese wasn’t good, but this had been the address the other group had sent out.

“Only that I’m glad we can go, we worked hard on the project.” An excuse, a lie, quickly coming to him. Dejun hated lying, especially to you as if felt like your whole relationship was founded upon it. Yet he had to, for the stability of himself and your life.

“We really did,” Fingers rubbing over the small paper cuts adorning your hands, it’s not that you’d been careless when flipping through the pages of your textbooks and research papers, well maybe a little bit, but to be fair the pages were thick. “I can only hope my other ones went as planned.”

To say that the two of you became closer over the course of your assignment may have been an understatement. Dejun, naturally and against his will (albeit there may be some discrepancy to that), is drawn to you like a moth to a flame. Intoxicated on you and you alone he knows that staying close is dangerous to you, but he can’t help it, he’s deigned himself to perpetual torment for the rest of eternity if it meant seeing you over and over again. He knows there’s a growing fondness for him within your heart, it had taken hold the first time you met and only has only grown since then. Dejun hates himself for this as he could’ve avoided this all.

“So, let’s head inside?” You ask, seeming to pull him out of his thoughts as you make way towards the door.

A burst of warm air hits you as the door swings open, the heat was running on full blast and if you weren’t going to be freezing you sure as hell would be sweating. You can already feel the beginnings of a thin line of perspiration beginning to form on your brow as the hostess leads the two of you to a table in the back corner of the restaurant. It was a somewhat gaudy reimagining of what you presumed to be a Japanese bar, but you weren’t sure how many bars in Japan had statues of samurai greeting you as soon as you entered. Although it was traditionally themed, with tables inlayed into the floor so that you’d either have to sit cross legged or yokuzuwai-style.

A few of your classmates turn to greet the two of you as you enter, the others too immersed in the atmosphere of binge drinking and celebratory mood to notice. You laugh at a pair of students arguing over who was going to pay the bill at the end of the night as you move to sit down at an empty spot in the middle of the table table. Looking to Dejun, who’d settled himself towards the end of the table, “Do you drink?” You almost have to mouth the words, worried that even if you did yell it would be drowned out by the other students’ chatter and shouts of ‘Kanpai!’.

It’s evident he can’t make out what you’re saying as he mouths something back that you can’t even try and fathom to understand. This altercation ends with you shuffling through the students so you can squeeze yourself into an almost empty space beside him, the rough tatami below brushing against your knees as you crawl, “I asked if you drink.” Finally settling down you notice that someone had already poured him a beer on your way over, his eyes linger on the amber liquid as if he was contemplating something much more than a night out.

After thinking for a few seconds more he turns to you, “I actually have a pretty low tolerance, so I don’t really drink too often.” Thoughts turning to an incident from the early twentieth century he shrugs off the shudder of a memory.

“I don’t either,” if anything you were the one who volunteered to watch out for your friends as they spent their nights intoxicated on their adolescence and freedom while they still sat under the rung of youth. You give him a small smile and motion towards the drink, “I’m really only here for the food so feel free to let loose for the night, I’ll make sure you don’t end up sleeping on the street or anything.”

He laughs as his hand reaches for the glass, “Glad to know I can count on you.”

The next hour or so is filled with more spilled drinks and empty plates than you’d thought possible in that span of time. Dejun, whose face was flushed after downing a drink or two, had slowly begun to become more introverted over the course of the night, despite prompts from you to try and bring him out of his shell. Fingers playing with the straw of your water you turn to him, finding that he was already intently looking in your direction, lips parted as he begins to speak, “I need to tell you something.” There’s a glimmer of worry, or maybe shame hiding in the depths of his gaze.

Eyebrows perked because he was definitely more intoxicated than the last time you’d spoken to him only minutes before. “Do you want to think about it before you do?” A small laugh, you’d been around enough drunkenness in your lifetime to know that people were more or less inclined to say things they’d regret in the morning. Before he’s able to speak again you notice his sight has shifted upwards, now looking at someone standing beside you.

“Hey,” Turning from Dejun at the sound of another you look up to see Yukhei standing beside you, a warm smile as he glances towards your partner. “Fancy seeing you here.”

The most you’d spoken to Yukhei was in the class you had with him a couple of semesters back, even then it wasn’t anything of consequence. He’d also say hello if he saw you walking around campus, but so would a plethora of other students that you vaguely knew from classes over the course of your years at university.

“Yeah,” retuning the smile as you take a drink from your straw, “Did you want to join us? We’re here celebrating finishing our projects for Schneider’s class.”

“I was actually wondering if I could talk with you for a moment?” At his words you feel a flush of goosebumps wash over your arms, pricking themselves up and down your spine as an eerily similar sensation washes over you. You look back to Dejun, his face shone with a tinge of annoyance, anger in his eyes as he looks to the other. When his gaze returns to you it’s almost as if there’s a pleading in his eyes, telling you not to go.

“Oh, uh, sure?” As confused as you were, you didn’t understand why Dejun was so silently vehement against you going along with the other. “I’ll be right back,” You shoot him a quick smile and then move to push yourself off of the ground, glancing back at Dejun as you follow Yukhei’s long strides out of the restaurant. A small kerfuffle at the door finds you separated from the taller as a group of businessmen pushed themselves through the small entrance. When you do spot him, he’s standing by the corner of the restaurant, leaning his back against the dark brick of the building, looking up to the sky as the clouds seem to hang lower and lower with every short drizzle they emit. Your hand raises up to your forehead, blocking the droplets from getting into your eyes as you realize you should’ve taken your jacket with you, “What did you want to talk about?” 

It takes a moment of silence, him staring up at the black clouds above before he begins to speak, “You think there’s this constant in your life; a steady job, a stable relationship, good friends, economy, whatever. It’s all inconstant, really.” Pale fingers gently roll an unlit cigarette between his thumb and index finger. “I wish I could tell you that it was, but it’s really not.”

“There’s only one constant.” He spoke before you had the chance to. “Know what that is?” His free hand reaching into his blazer, procuring what looked like an antique lighter from the fabric’s depths. With a casual flick of his wrist the lighter spewed to life, igniting the end of the cigarette that you hadn’t noticed he’d placed between his lips.

You frown as a tremor of a shiver runs through you, now only wanting to head back inside from the cool of the night. There was something about him that seemed off, you can’t seem to put your finger on it as to why. “No, what is it?”

The corners of his mouth twitch upwards as he takes in a drag. Seconds later the smoke filters out from his mouth in a longing sigh, it looks almost black in the night air. You could laugh at the absurdity of it all; the hanging clouds, the dark clothing, philosophy- it all seemed very melodramatic, as if he’d been planning this sort of thing.

A silence hung between you, unsure for how long, your eyes were fixed on the cigarette dangling from his lips as the embers within it slowly burned the paper away.

“Death.” Yukhei finally spoke up, removing the cigarette from his mouth and holding it between his index and middle fingers as he emphasizes his words with his hands, “Young or old it’ll always be a constant. That’s what makes humans so afraid of it, you can move past losing a job or breaking up, but they’ll never be able to overcome death.” He must’ve noticed you staring as he let the cigarette fall from his hand and onto the damp ground, you feel the trickle of rain begin to become harsher, tapping harder against the metal streetlights overhead. The toe of his shoe moves over the smoldering paper and blankets it, smothering it from any more oxygen intake until it was a mess of soggy grounds on the pavement.

“Did you know ancient physicians in China tried to make an elixir of life out of mercury? Mercury!” A chortle escapes him, “And that French explorer, Ponce de Leon? He sailed across the Atlantic to find the fountain of youth. Imagine that, uprooting everything you loved to try and live forever.” He fidgets with the lighter in his hand, looking up to the crying sky for a moment. A few seconds later he looks back to you, rain streaming down the arches of his face as if they were tears. “The Jewish faith believes a man named Methuselah lived for nine-hundred years, nine hundred!” The emphasis added to his incredulity, “Could you imagine that? What’s with humans and their want for immortality?”

“Maybe to be remembered? Not just fade away with the rest of history?” Cheek bitten your shoe scuffs on the ground as you try and give it some more thought. “It’s why emperors had statues and monuments built, right?”

“You think so? I think it’s because they’re jealous of their deities. Most of them can’t die, why should humans look up to something when it’ll be there long after they are?” Shoulders shrugging loftily as he slides the lighter back into his jacket. His head nods as he looks around the almost deserted street, only met with the occasional headlights of a passing car speeding through the rain. “I think we’ve been outside for long enough, why don’t you head back in?”

“Aren’t you coming back?” Questioning him before turning to the door to not seem as eager, this conversation had put you off and left an odd feeling crawling around your stomach. The neon lights flicker overhead, shrouding the two of you in darkness for only a brief moment, but just long enough for the unease to rise exponentially high.

“I’ve had enough of this to last a lifetime or two,” His hand waves as he begins to walk off, “You should go back in and enjoy your night, I’ll see you around.”

The air feels heavy as you walk back into the restaurant, tangible enough to almost feel it press back against you as you pull open the door. Almost reminiscent of the feeling you had in Dejun’s apartment that had your hair standing on end like some sort of sixth sense. You lock eyes with the statue of the angry looking samurai standing in the front, it’s only for a moment but it feels as if its gaze is penetrating your very soul. When you see the first person slumped over their table you don’t think much of it, they’re probably too drunk to realize they were sleeping in public. The second unnoticed as well, but when you return to the table that your classmates had procured, you realize something was terribly wrong.

“Hey,” you fall to your knees at Dejun’s side as his finger draws circles in the water from the condensation on the beer glass in front of him. “Dejun,” hand waving in front of him as you try to get his attention, “Everyone’s asleep.” It’s not until you put your hand on his shoulder he rouses from his trance.

Blinking, as if waking from a long nap he sluggishly looks around the cramped space. “Not again,” the words fall from his lips, slurred and almost incoherent. There was an aura of anguish exuding from him, even making you frown when he spoke once more. “It’s like Copenhagen,” Lost in his drunken stupor you don’t try to make sense of his words. “They’ll wake up soon, probably,” hands reaching out to grasp the pitcher of beer you move yours to stop him.

“I think you’ve had enough; you said your tolerance isn’t that high,” A gentle reminder as the glass is set back onto the table, your hand still atop his.

“Aren’t you tired?” His head turns to you, eyes wide as your heart begins to pound. There’s a worry in his gaze that you can’t pinpoint, you tick it off to his intoxicated state. “You’re tired, right? You always got tired when I-” Dejun goes silent, inward with himself as he stops what he’s about to say next as he pulls his hand away from yours and into his lap.

Brow furrowing at his words, you’d never drank with him before, nor were you tired. “I’m fine, Dejun, but I’m not sure that you are.” Your eyes scan the room, other members of your party as well as the other patrons beginning to stir ever so slowly. “Do you want to go back home?” He responds with nothing but a slow nod, slumping his back against the wood paned wall behind him as you reach across the table for your phone. “I’m going to call a cab to pick us up.” By the time you dial the number you see that he’s already begun to doze off, the other students you were with beginning to chatter once more as if nothing had happened.

The taxi arrives several minutes after you explain to your classmates that you were calling it a night so that you could make sure Dejun got home safely. A few mocking laughs at someone who couldn’t hold their alcohol stuttering around the room as you ask one of your classmates to help you carry Dejun to the car. They obligingly agree, helping you get him situated in the back seat as you tell the driver Dejun’s address, only getting a ‘He better not throw up back there,’ in response.

You’re not sure how you got Dejun up those five flights of stairs, maybe strength is the face of adversity. Adversity being a drunk college student gently snoring in your ear as you try and lug him up the stairs. Once at his door you begin to rummage around his pockets, looking for that gold-gilded key he so often toyed with. Before you’ve even found it his door swings open, a figure standing over you as you fumble to look at them.

“Kunhang?” A spark of recognition for someone you’d only ever dreamt of.

Eyes shining as a small smile graces him, “Actually, my name’s Hendery. I’m staying with Dejun for a bit.” Gaze shifted towards Dejun slumped over your shoulder he begins to speak again, “Was he drinking again?”

“Does this happen often?” You question as the other reaches out for the intoxicated, pulling him into the apartment. 

“The last time I’ve seen him like this must’ve been-” He ponders as he walks into the apartment, Dejun’s shoes sliding atop the wooden floor as he snoozes away. You can tell he’s trying to remember, but it isn’t coming to him. Kunhang, no- Hendery, almost tosses him onto the sofa, wiping his hands together as if he’d just disposed of a garbage bag. 

Eyes breaking away from Dejun’s sleeping figure. It was hard to, he looked serene, you’d mistake him for dead if not for the slow and steady rise and fall of his chest, “Was it Copenhagen?”

A shine in his eyes as he looks to you, eyebrow as quizzical as his tone, “How do you know about that?”

Glancing back to Dejun peacefully sleeping, “He mentioned it earlier.”

“I think it might’ve been,” Pondering as he looks back to Dejun. “Did you want water or anything? I’m afraid your host is out of commission for the rest of the evening.”

“I’m fine, thank you though.” Pulling your phone out of your back pocket you see it’s already edging on midnight; you had those other projects to worry about so maybe you didn’t want to stay out later than you should. “I actually have to get going, unfortunately the semester’s not over yet.” A sigh as you slip your phone back into your pocket, “Can you do me a favor at tell him to call me or messenger pigeon or whatever he does to communicate like a normal person to tell me how he’s feeling tomorrow?”

A laugh as Hendery nods while you head to the door, “Sure thing. He might be out for a bit though.”

“Any communication will do, I know how weird he is,” You sigh as you step out of the door, taking one last glance at Dejun before turning to the hallway. “Thanks, Kunhang.” The other doesn’t even bother to correct you as you begin walking down the staircase, frowning to himself as he wonders what in the hell Dejun had gotten himself into.

**x.**

It was the bite of bitter cold that made your jaw ache. The kind of air that circled you like an emaciated wolf with large eyes as you wearily stepped closer and closer to its den. Enticing you forwards for the way back was to be longer and harsher than the short steps to the salvation of warmth. Eyes glancing to the phone in your hand, past the spiderwebs of cracks and fingerprints adorning it like a battle worn trophy, you glance to the address comparing it to that of the building in front of you. It’s quaint, small and tucked away in the underbellied alleys of the city of your home. New home. Parts of the town were still unfamiliar to you, despite having lived here before and taking up residence again only a few years prior. You weren’t sure what made you drag yourself to the outskirts of the city, maybe it was the conversation you had with Yukhei last night, maybe it was Seulgi’s incessant pressuring after you’d told her about the second dream you had about Dejun. It was unsettling, as if something was looming over you everywhere you went. You chalk it up to paranoia, you’d never been the type to believe in ghosts or spirits or any other of the supernatural phenomena, in your adult life, anyway.

A sigh as you scuff the toe of your sneaker atop the concrete sidewalk, wondering to yourself why you were even here in the first place. The door of the shop opens with the soft tinkling of bells and the creak of a hinge far too old to still be in use as you push it, the scent of almost every spice and herb known to man hitting you at once. Rather than nauseating it brings a peculiar sense of calmness as you use your index and middle fingers to rub at your jaw in hopes to remove the throbbing from the cold. After taking a step inside, the warmth encapsulates you like a quilted down blanket, you look around the space, the worn tapestries adorning the walls and slew of items scattered around you could only vaguely recognize from fortune teller shops in shows and films.

“Can I help you?” An elderly voice emanates from somewhere in the back of the building, it was only as you tried to decipher a figure in the darkness did you realize how dim it was inside of the shop. Shades and curtains drawn as if to mask the morning light from seeping in, it was almost vampire-esqe.

“Oh- yes,” A small smile as an ancient woman shuffles from the back room, only coming into true vision when she nears one of the antique lamps littered around the shop. The glow of the light casting long and shifting shadows across the room as you look down to her hands. She’s holding some sort of dried, leafy herb as she moves to greet you. “I’m a friend of Seulgi’s, her grandmother recommended that I come speak with you? Or get a reading? I’m not too sure what the terminology is.”

“It’s all the same really,” A shake of her head as she continues to shuffle forwards, setting down the bundle of herbs onto a nearby shelf. “Boy trouble?” There’s something about her that you recognize, you’re just unable to put your finger on it as she motions you towards a weathered table in the corner of the room. Sitting down you think that it may just break under your weight with how teetering and archaic it seemed, yet it holds firm, not budging an inch.

“Something like that,” Still trying to figure out why she looked so familiar. A sparkle in her eye as she extends out her hand for you to take, strange as it might be you accept it, laying your arm across the table as she offers a small smile, the crow’s feet of her eyes crinkling upwards.

“Do you go to college here?” Hand atop yours as she pats it gently, an odd reassurance but you weren’t the one to question the normalcies of the elderly. “My sister works as a librarian there; students seem to get us confused whenever they see us.”

“Are there a lot of students that come in?” It really didn’t seem like a hangout or place that you thought others your age would frequent. Superstitions and the occult were something of older generations, not of the modernity that came along with the youth of today.

“Every once in a while,” A continuation of a smile as she releases your hand, “What can I help you with?”

“I-” You hesitate. Struggling to find the words to make the nonsensical nature of your visit coherent. “I’ve been having these dreams about someone and I’m not really sure what they mean? I was hoping that you could read them.”

“I can try my best,” Her hands reach out to grasp a small notepad atop the table, opening it to a page marked by a pen tucked inside of it. “Now, why don’t you tell me what you remember?”

The string of words that fall from you come out tangled and twisted as you try and vocalize your concerns, or more so the concerns of your friend, about the dreams you’ve had over the course of the month. Trying to untangle and weave together strings of coherency and pulling from memories burrowed into your subconscious takes more effort than you thought. More than once you find your sight trailing around the room, photographs and paintings lulling you from your thoughts as you find it hard to look into the gaze of the elderly woman. It was as if her whole demeanor had changed as soon as you began to speak, the gentle aura becoming more and more stoic as time progressed. When you finish, you sit in sate silence as the woman continues to write, scribbling away as she pens something completely illegible from your side of the table. It’s not until the pen is capped and the book left open to dry that her gaze returns to you, looking up from the congeries of drawings and cacography that adorned the page, that she speaks again. “Those are quite strange,” her lips purse as she leans forward ever so slightly, “Have you ever asked him about it?”

“I mentioned it once,” Jumping slightly at the shift from the cheerier tone she’d had earlier. Now she sounded morose, you weren’t sure why. “But nothing really in detail. I didn’t figure I had to; they were dreams after all.”

“Dreams can be far more telling of our reality than we’d care to admit,” It was meant to be some sort of reassurance, yet it left you feeling with an odd sense of foreboding than anything else. “What did you say his name was?”

“Dejun,” slow and steady, his name is like honey, sweet and viscous as it emerges from you, “Xiao Dejun.”

It’s a glint, a small glint that flickers behind her eyes like the failed spark from a flint meant to ignite a lighter. If you hadn’t been watching her intently, trying to make sense of her prior statement, it may have been lost into the ether. You can’t pinpoint what it was, but a ghost of a smile gave you the notion that she had recognized the name.

A sigh from her, “I fear your dreams mean more than I’d previously thought.” Maybe it’s a sadness that dwells within her, emanating so palpably that you too feel the sense of mourning overcome you.

“Do you,” Head tilting, “know him?”

“If you’ll excuse me,” the answer never comes as she stands, eyes looking towards the doorway she’d come out of when you’d entered. “I just need to get something for you.” Her steps are silent, muffled by the array of carpets and hall runners underfoot, their once vibrant hues worn away from long use or entirely by their age.

She’s gone for what seems like years, your fingers absentmindedly tapping on the tabletop as she returns with an old box in her hands. No bigger than one that would house a pair of sneakers, it’s worn around the edges, battered from who knows what and there’s something scribbled on the side. Text far too faded to read you don’t make an attempt to. The elderly woman sits down, box set upon the table as she speaks again, “Are you someone who believes in fate? Or of something beyond what you know?”

You don’t try to mask the obvious confusion settling into your features, the tensing of your shoulders or the slight downward curvature etching itself into your lips. “I wouldn’t say so. I’ve never been religious or super superstitious if that’s what you’re asking.”

A nod of her head only making you question her further. Before your lips part to ask her of what she meant, she motions towards the box, for you to open and explore its contents. As you move to unlid it, she speaks again, “I promised him that I would just keep it, just to stow it away and make sure it would never see the light of day.” There’s a hesitance in her voice as you place the lid onto the table, peering into the box to find several envelopes and empty photo frames inside. Envelopes worn and yellowed with age, frames looking as if they’d come from decades prior. “But I feel like you of all people have a right to know.”

An eerie itch, that’s the only way you can describe the descending feeling of unease as you pull one of the envelopes out. “Promised who?” Answer coming when you slide the contents of the envelope onto the table in front of you. Old photos, you’re not sure how long ago they’d been taken, cascading outwards, splaying their contents for the pair of you to gaze at. It’s Dejun. Or someone who looked like him? The first picture shows him leaning against a large tree, nothing around him told you where it was taken but the outfit he wore gave notion that it was certainly a different time. Overcoat, waistcoat, button-up collared shirt, it just wasn’t of this era. A shuffling of the photos once more, more of him in different attire, one of him and someone who resembled Kunhang sitting under an awning of a café in what looked like Paris, or at least somewhere French. And then there’s one of you, sitting under a tree in a field that you only recognized from your dream. Yet it wasn’t a photograph, it was an old drawing that looked as if it would crumble if blown upon. The dress, the lantern and a smile adorning your face as you look at the artist, even if it wasn’t a picture it was most definitely _you_.

There’s a nauseating feeling immersing you, coiling around your stomach like a snake writhing to escape. What was this? Who was this? This was you, but it most certainly _wasn’t_ you because you would’ve remembered this being drawn. You’d never physically been somewhere like this in your life.

“Dejun has always been secretive,” Flipping through the photos you hardly hear her as you feel a rush of blood to your ears. It sounds as if you’re in a train tunnel, the automotive barreling through and drowning out any other noise. “I knew, only vaguely, of his sentence. I just wasn’t sure if it was still ongoing.”

A tilt of your head, an undoubtedly perplexed expression, “Am I being pranked right now?” Fingers sliding over the photos, gently, you fear that if you apply too much pressure they may disintegrate under your touch. “What are you talking about?”

“I know he’s never been able to speak of it,” An inward conversation, you sit there left in the dark and missing a link to something you knew nothing of. “At least to you.” She’s sullen, the emotion seeping from her like a dam on the verge of bursting open.

“What are you talking about?” Annoyance tinged on your voice as you repeat the question.

A deep inhalation, gripping feeling tightening its hold on your sternum as she speaks again, “The dreams you’ve told me about, that you remember so vividly are more than just things you’re imagining up. They’re the reality of a past life of yours or maybe several,” She notices the look on your face and allows you to speak.

It’s all nonsense, it has to be because this isn’t something that happened in real life. In films and shows and books maybe but definitely not here and definitely not to you. “You’re telling me that a past me knew someone that looked exactly like Dejun?”

“Not someone else,” A shake of her head as she motions back to the picture you now had clasped in your hands. “It _is_ him.”

**xi.**

It’s all too bright to wake up. Sunlight seeping in through foggy panes and cascading down the walls like a golden liquid. Dejun’s head rings with the songs of a once drunken stupor, tiny drumming resounding around his ears as his eyes crack open from the deadness of slumber. He shifts, limbs aching and sore from staying static the entirety of the night.

“Back from the dead?” A voice calling from his kitchen. Kunhang emerges seconds later, box of cereal in hand as he strolls leisurely to his elder. “You had quite the night.”

“Barely,” Sleep rubbed from his eyes as he sits up from his reclined position, blanket falling away and pooling onto the hardwood floor. Eyes shifting to the sunlight glaring in through the dirty windowpanes of his front room. He felt ill, sick to his stomach from more than just the alcohol he’d consumed. “What time is it?” Voice croaky and not akin to anything he’d heard himself sound like before, he was hoarse and groggy and hungover.

Kunhang was never the one to keep time, rather revolving around his own schedule than adhering to the uniform timeliness of others. Glancing to a small clock on one of the nearby shelves, “Around one? You’ve been out since before she brought you back yesterday.” He falls into the cream colored armchair adjacent to the couch, legs hanging over one of the arms as his back is propped up by the other.

“She?” Normally he was quick to forget his nights of sin. Of indulgence and insobriety, but the remembrance of you pulls him from that, “She brought me back?”

A nod as Kunhang stuffs a handful of the sugary cereal into his mouth, Dejun doesn’t remember having that in his pantry. The other chews for a moment, responding even when his mouth was still partially full of food, “I don’t know how she lugged you up all those flights, it was pretty impressive.”

Head finding solace in his hands Dejun frowns, unable to recall what had occurred the night prior. He remembers the bar. Remembers you. Remembers the alcohol. Remembers Yukhei. The thought of the name increasing the feeling of nausea permeating his very being. After that it’s a blur of lights and movements he can’t quite piece together fully. “I didn’t say anything, did I?” He moves to look to the other, who was offering the box out to him, a gesture he waves away with his hand. The last thing he’s thinking of is indulging in mortal pleasures.

“It’s not really _you_ who said anything,” a ponderance, “well you did mention Copenhagen but not in a way that she’d ever get it.” Shoulder shrugging, he wipes the remnants of the sugar on his pants and moves to place the box atop the coffee table. “She knew my name.”

Dejun’s overcome with a pestilence of dread, swallowing down the other’s words like a draught conjured to enable the fear that had clung to him silently. “What do you mean?” Hands wringing together, a pit in his stomach dropping.

“I opened the door, thinking I’d surprise you after you’d come back from your little date or whatever but I saw her and you slumped over her shoulder,” Legs crossing as he looks up to the hairline cracks adorning the ceiling, spiderwebbing from the corners of the room. “She took one look at me and said my name. I’ve never met her before. Well not this her, you know what I mean.” His gaze shifts to Dejun, who was clearly off put by the whole ordeal. “You haven’t mentioned me at all, have you?”

“No,” A vehement shake of his head as his fear of disrupting the fragile rope he treads was far too great a risk, “I never have.”

“Do you think if she’s remembering, it means that this might be it?” Kunhang shifts, sitting upwards and planting his feet onto the hardwood floor, “I did tell you about that rumor that’d been floating around lately.”

“I’m not too inclined to believe the rumors of the gods,” A sigh, hand brushing fallen strands of hair away from his face. As he does so, he pauses, pulling his hand away from his face and staring at it for a moment, “She wasn’t tired last night, was she? After taking me home?”

Kunhang thinks, shaking his head after a moment, “No, not that I remember, she was more worried about making sure you were okay. Oh- she also wants you to tell her that you’re alright when you wake up, I forgot to mention that earlier.”

It’s as if he realizes he’s slept so soundly for the first time in ages, and that you’d not fallen under the spell that so many, that _everybody_ , succumbed to. “That’s never happened, even when-”

Three knocks. It pulls the pair from their discussion, breaths caught in their throats as if it were some intervening force sought to dispel the aura of intensifying investigation into the already unnatural phenomena occurring. Dejun moves to arise from the couch, halted by Kunhang, who’s already on his feet and heading towards the foyer.

“I don’t want you passing out again,” Kunhang notes as he opens the door. There’s silence, Dejun can’t tell who’s at the door but can assume as soon as he hears the furious whispering coming from the direction. In an instant he can feel the blood-boiling anger begin to bubble in his stomach as Kunhang comes into view. They share a grimace of a look before Dejun’s attention is turned to his uninvited guest, Wong Yukhei.

The three are silent, Kunhang wandering off to the kitchen, presumably to avoid the tension now radiating throughout Dejun’s living room. Yukhei’s eyes scan the area, lingering on every odd item or so before settling onto Dejun’s reclined figure, if he wasn’t feeling so godawful, he may have just stood to meet him fully. “This is a cute place you’ve got.” Cheek bitten he gives the interior another once over, “How much is rent a month? I’m looking for an apartment too.”

“Can you cut the shit, Xuxi?” Head resting in his hand as he leans on the arm of the couch as he reclines back down. Dejun had expected this a hundred years ago, he was wondering what had caused the other to exercise so much restraint until now.

“When did you know it was me?” Eyebrow piqued, hand reaching into his back pocket as he slips out a pack of cigarettes. “I hope you don’t mind?” Yukhei takes the silence as a quiet yes as he moves to slide one of the cigarettes out of the carton. He walks to one of the windows facing the street, it cracked open to let a small air flow in to Dejun’s admittedly sweltering apartment.

It takes a moment for Dejun to process, to comprehend the decades of silence and chameleon-like nature from him, “The second that you started talking to her at the fair.”

“Damn, I thought I could’ve gone a little longer than that. “To be fair I did see you once before then. But I was never the one for deceptive tricks, was I?” A glance over to Kunhang, who sat atop Dejun’s counter as the other two spoke.

A sigh as Kunhang hops down from the ledge he sat upon, feet barely grazing the pale linoleum tiles before he speaks, “Should I leave this family reunion to yourselves?” It’s not so much a question as a statement, him heading to the foyer to slip on his shoes and grab his jacket from the hall tree before shooting a “This is where I take my leave. Don’t forget to drink water, lover boy,” to Dejun and exiting the apartment without so much as a goodbye.

An intake of smoke as Dejun hears the front door click shut, signaling that his friend really had left him alone with this monster, “The world’s changed, Dejun. But you haven’t?" Serpentine tongue pulling him from the tragedy of his friend leaving.

"I wonder why,” A scoff as Dejun’s arms cross, eyes fluttering to the frown adorning Yukhei’s lips.

“I didn’t ever mean for this to happen,” A flick of the cigarette against the sill of the opened window led to the ashes falling stories below. “If you know why I’m here then why are _you_ still here?" Dejun’s eyes watch the ash fall from the butt, dropping, scattering towards the ground. His face scrunches, he’d never been a fan of the smell of cigarette smoke, a part of him thinks that’s why Yukhei began smoking them in the first place.

"Because unlike you I keep my promises?” Dejun shifts, pushing himself off the couch and onto his feet, he steadies himself by leaning partially against the side of the settee.

A laugh, “This masochistic nature of yours is a real bummer, you’ve been like that since you were a kid.”

“Why now?” Dejun asks, he feels ill, but he’ll swallow his hangover just as he’d swallowed the ache of centuries of longing. “Why come now of all times?”

“You know as well as I do that something’s different,” The words pierce Dejun, soak into his skin and make him want to realize that maybe he wasn’t stuck in the past anymore. It’s too bittersweet to think about, too idealistic and obscure after his years of torment already. 

Dejun didn’t want to admit it, he was scared to. “I don’t need you to waltz in here and tell me that everything’s going to be alright, Yukhei. It’s not her, and it won’t ever be her.” A hand brought to his forehead as the dizziness of post-intoxication consumes him. “I’m only here because of you.”

“I was a stupid kid, what more do you want me to say? I’m sorry?” A scoff leaving him, “We were both stupid, and no matter how many times I apologize now you won’t ever accept it. You’re crawling all over earth for a mind long since dead and a girl who doesn’t even love you back. I just want you to come back home.”

The stubbornness that Yukhei exudes wasn’t something new. Dejun remembers it vividly from their shared childhood, even at the emergence of their powers he was always held in a higher regard and it created something of an egotistic complex within the older. Be it that he was the god of Death he seemed unfeeling towards the woes of the lives he affected.

“Home,” The word unfamiliar on his lips yet yearning of a place long since visited. Hand removed from his head, falling to his side as he glares at his brother, “Did you do something to her? You obviously sought her out before she ever found me.”

A shake of his head, “No. I did look for her, though. I was curious to see if she was really as,” Yukhei pauses for a moment, thinking of the correct word to use, “familiar as she was back then? She really doesn’t know anything, does she?”

“I was afraid that speaking of it would kill her again,” A frown settling onto his lips. “She’s been dreaming about me and Kunhang. I suppose you too, but she hasn’t mentioned it.” Dejun sighs, the itching want of things to have really changed growing ever stronger. “What do I do?”

“Don’t you think she has a right to know?” Yukhei questions with a tilt of his head, “This might be your only chance to tell her what’s going on.”

“Since when did you get a conscience?”

“Since I grew my own heart and loved someone on my own.” Yukhei doesn’t allow Dejun to press further on the matter, walking towards the foyer, “I never meant to hurt you or her as much as I did. If I could take it back I would. But now you’ve been given a chance to reconcile with yourself and I really think you shouldn’t shy away from it.”

**xii.**

There’s this weight, this oppressive weight, that hangs over Dejun as if it was set there to smother him from the past. It drags behind him, urging him to go downwards, back home, away from the nonsensical nature of his love. Of his self-torment. But he ignores it, thinking his resolve strengthened after centuries of carrying it atop his shoulders. Yet he finds that the load he bears is only ever growing, with each passing second it heightens atop itself until it successfully pulls him asunder. 

The light in the sky seems to grow dimmer and dimmer with every step he takes, illumination gone as the sun sets. The sinking pit in his stomach anchors his mind down to the reality of his situation. He is jubilant and he is terrified. Streetlights flickering, casting ghosts of shadows and remnants of the daytime onto the tree lined streets.

Your door is pale gray, matching those that lined the hall and Dejun had to try and remember the number he’d scrawled onto a scrap piece of paper to remember your address. He was a flurry of tension and butterflies, not knowing what he was to say or what he was to do. But he knew he had to see you, spill forth something troubling him and previous yous over the course of several eras.

“How– What are you doing here?” Voice full of shock as the door opens in front of him, you were wearing sweats and an oversized sweatshirt. Obviously not attire to host company with, but that was the last thing on both you and Dejun’s minds.

“Student directory,” bated breaths, he slumps against the doorframe as he tries to catch himself, not realizing how much he’d exhausted himself on his jaunt over. As if he realizes what he’s doing and what he’s here for he straightens up, demeanor changing into something more serious, “Can we talk?”

“Depends,” Hand playing with the knob of your door as you don’t allow it to open any wider. “Are you hungover?”

“Not anymore,” A small, nervous laugh. “Thanks for bringing me home by the way.”

“It’s no problem.” Flicker of a smile on your lips as you move to swing the door ever so slightly back in forth, it’s uneasiness and you weren’t trying to hide it.

“Would it be alright if I came in?” Eyes peering into the apartment behind you, you nod wordlessly and open the door to allow him access.  
  
“Is that what I’ve been dreaming about then? My past lives?” The cup of coffee you’d brewed prior to his arrival sat atop your coffee table, untouched and not as tepid as you would’ve liked it to be. Dejun sits with his hands in his lap, looking up at you.

“From what you’ve told me, I’d think so,” He starts carefully, eyes glancing around to the different knickknacks that adorned your apartment, eyes lingering on every odd photo of you scattered around.

“Does everyone else have past lives?”

“Yes— you’re taking this better than I thought you would.” Dejun’s voice piques with curiosity, having fully expected you to expel him from your home in disbelief as what he said would sound beyond fantastical to a normal person.

“I visited one of those fortune tellers,” Not that that alone was reason enough to have even a remotely level head about this.

“Did you really?” A look of anguish, or maybe it was shock. “Which one was it?” His hands rub the sides of his jeans nervously, wiping away the anxiousness invading him as he looks expectantly at you.

“It was one of Seulgi’s go to’s, I can’t remember her name.”

“She didn’t look like that librarian, did she?”

Brow furrowing, you’re confused as to why he would know this oddly specific detail. But that really shouldn’t be the thing making you question the nature of reality at this moment, “She did.”

“Did you believe her?”

“I think I have to, from what you’ve said.” Dejun’s quiet, unresponsive as you stand. A bubbling of anger, anxiousness inside of you threatening to spill over like water in a rapidly boiling pot. “I thought she was some quack that tried to decipher leaves at the bottom of a cup! I didn’t think she was going to tell me that my whole life is,” a hesitance as you can’t find the words to explain your paradoxical being. “What is it?” It’s almost impossible to find the ability to look at him, your chest felt as if it were seizing in upon itself and your mind felt muddled with the weight of it all. “Who am I?” Hands moving as if to make sure the bones, sinewy threads of your ligaments, and skin were your own. “Who was she?” Footsteps falling atop of hardwood floors as you move across the normalcy of your apartment, sending the eerie creaks from the aged wood several stories below. As you walk you wonder if it was the subtle movements like this that caused you to fear ghosts as a child, were you now the phantom that haunted the dreams of the sleeping?

“You- She,” Dejun begins, fumbling with his words as they escape him, grasping for a constant that had yet to be there for centuries. “I loved her.” Not the choice words but they burst from him as if a wall inside of him had cracked and crumbled under an unbearable weight. “I love her. Or the notion of her.” His hands are shaking and no matter how many times he clamps them together they won’t stop, the tremors and the anxiousness invading every sense of his to deter him from trying to explain the impossible.

The pictures you’d gotten earlier in the day were tucked away in the shadows of your bedroom; you had thought of bringing them out earlier to help him help you understand what was going on but your head hurt and you felt repulsive, not yourself. He’s slumped onto the couch when you turn to him, he’d fallen silent but the thoughts racing through your head had seemed to quell the silence you hadn’t perceived.

“If,” Pausing, thinking, “If what you’re saying is true and I’m some lover reincarnate to you, does that mean you willingly sought me out?”

“It’s not that I did, it’s just- wherever I go you’re there. Or someone that looks like you: no matter the country, no matter the year it’s unequivocally you.”

“Am I supposed to be a substitute for her?” A huff, your head hurts as you raise a hand, stopping him before he could protest. “Actually, I don’t want to know.” It was at this moment you wonder if the feelings that had begun to emerge for him were really yours at all, there was a pull to him from that first moment you’d spotted him in that coffee shop. You’d been the one to seek him out and not the other way around. You can’t blame Dejun for your interest in him, could you? It was all too much to comprehend and you’re not sure that you would ever be able to do it fully, “Dejun you’ve taken something away from me and I don’t know how I’m supposed to function.”

“I would never, _never_ expect you to be her,” He stands from the couch in dissent, walking over to you. “You have to believe me. I expect nothing from you and understand completely that you’re not her.” Dejun takes your wrist, gripping around it ever so gently as he locks his eyes with yours, “You have to believe me.”

You find yourself falling into him, something otherworldly spurning in your chest as this was the first time he’d reached out to you. When his lips press to yours there’s an insatiable yearning that invades you, pressing to move yourself forwards to want you to envelope yourself in the desire of it all. Maybe you thought it would be some sort of revelation, memories of a you flooding into your subconscious or some fantastical event would occur. Yet it was just his lips on yours, the ache pervading your senses only intensifying the longer you stay.

“I think,” parting from him, his grip lost on you as you step away. Eyes widening as you don’t want to address the flush of your cheeks and your heart slamming against your rib cage, “I think I need time to think about this.”

The taste of you still lingering on his lips, making himself drunk on the notion of it all, he nods his head. “If you have any other questions, you know where to find me.” And with those final words he was gone, the door clicking shut as he makes the retreat to his apartment, slinking through the streets in his warped emotions. Neither he nor you knew how to feel, it was as if the chassis of your relationship now was forged on the detriment of another. Your heart aches while his soars, and when his sinks there’s an elation within you. A rubbing of your eyes as you now begin to fear sleep for the truths it may uproot.

**xiii.**

A dampness, hot and slick racing down the hollows of your cheeks as a hand raises to dab them away. The fabric soft and soothing underneath you, you realize you’re laying down, under thick blankets and a warmth coming from somewhere behind you. You were not alone in bed. It’s not long before you realize that this is another dream, or memory, of a you from long ago. And when this you turns, you see that the slumbering figure besides you, arm draped over your side, is none other than Dejun himself. Perhaps you should be angry, upset, you’ve yet to fully comprehend your situation and have therefore left all emotions and actions in limbo. But he was so serene when he slept, it almost made you forget the illusion of normalcy that’d hung over him, deceiving you, from the time you’d known him.

The slow breaths he takes move his chest in rhythmic rises and falls, Dejun’s eyes may be closed but he isn’t fully resting, not yet. Two heartbeats fill your ears as the air lays stagnant around the two of you, ear nearing his chest there’s a certain calmness that runs through you. Prevailing through the anxiety you’d been ridden with over the last few weeks. A strand of hair lays across your face, tickling your nose as you inhale, but there’s no effort to move it, you are too at peace to move from his side. Dejun’s eyes open briefly as he rouses from sleep, closing them again and then opening once more as he realizes you were stirring. He wants to snapshot the picture of you lying next to him, as if he needed more confirmation of your togetherness. He traces the outline of your face with his eyes, noting every little incline and slope, wondering- still - how the two of you had come to this point. 

“What do you think will happen tomorrow, Dejun?” Your voice breaks the silence with a whisper, not trying to disturb him if he’s still dormant. “Are you sure I can go back?”

A few more languid breaths from him before he rouses, pulling you closer and placing his lips atop your head in a chaste peck. “I suspect Xuxi will want to know what happened, and if everything’s going to plan. And of course you can.” It’s as if his words are meant to act as a comfort to him and not only yourself. There’s a solace in them that you’ve yet to find, but the destressing of your shoulders tells you perhaps it was there all along.

Your lips curl into a soft smile as you press against him, “I suspect you’re right.” You ponder for a moment, “You are happy with this, aren’t you?”

You could feel him chuckle, his warm breath cascading down your scalp, “Is that even a question?” 

The dawn breaks through your window as you actually awaken, another night of waking to cold perspiration cutting down the sides of your face. Instead of confused at your dream, you try and piece together a puzzle that was only slowly beginning to show you what it was meant to look like. You’re not sure if your dreams were enough to complete the picture, only the handful of those who had been there could do it, but you were distancing yourself from all of that. All of them.

Moving from the bed, your limbs are sore, aching with a strain you must’ve put them through during the nighttime. A small shuffle over to your desk in the corner of your room, hand resting atop the wooden surface to balance yourself. You’d been keeping a small journal trying to write down every dream relating to the past, yet most were fragments and you were unable to string together everything. A sigh as you open one of the desk drawers to grab a pen, only to catch your eye on a piece of paper stuck in the back of the drawer. Stowed away in the back of your mind, you’d forgotten about the letter that was written for an unknown recipient. The woman from the fortune teller shop had said to visit the address scribbled onto the front should you have any questions about your being. Tongue bitten, you read over the address, it wasn’t far and really shouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience now that classes were wrapping up for the semester, would it?

“Can you tell me why you brought in this picture?” Rough, scraping sound as the shiny film is slid across the unvarnished tabletop. A splinter received only moments earlier aching, resonating its presence inside of you pulsing, calling. Tunnel vision as you stare at the copy of the old photo on the table, frowning as this had haunted you since you’d acquired it. The bespectacled man, gray and withering, nods his head as you lock eyes, urging you to say something after a moment of silence. There was nothing to say, nothing rational, at least. Blinking, the picture shifts, the scene from when it was taken replaying over in your mind. Smiling at the camera as he waits patiently for the image to develop. This wasn’t your memory; you know that as much. Eyes diverting, looking to the small cuckoo clock adorning one of the various shelves of books around the small space. Hands in your lap, clenching as you see that the elder is writing something down in his tattered journal. You just wanted to feel better, forget it all, why couldn’t you?

“I understand you’ve been having a few issues lately,” Glasses removed, being wiped with a small handkerchief he had lying on the table next to his mug of lukewarm, black coffee. The air was stale with the stench of it, causing your nose to crinkle as he continues, “And I understand that you may be having difficulty expressing yourself because of them.” That was one way to put it. Your hands shift, writhing, thumb prying at your index finger to try and remove the piece of wood that was causing you as much discomfort as your insides.

Grimacing as he moves to adjust the glasses atop the bridge of his nose, “I can’t help you unless you want to talk, do you want to talk?”

A frown as you cave into yourself, lips bitten as rational words never come. This was supposed to be easy, a fever dream over the course of a semester, not something that threw your life into shambles. “Why do I keep seeing him wherever I go?” You feel as if the answer is already waiting to spring forth from your mouth, but you were too apprehensive, too unwilling to admit it. Hands clenched, breath caught in your throat, “In my dreams, I haven’t seen him in person since I told him I needed space.”

“We can be far too dependent on the memory of someone,” Gaze looking down to the photo, “Why have you brought this in?” Pressuring, it’s not as if the truth would sound better than some intangible lie from your lips.

“That’s him.” You blink, turning your head away from the scene, embarrassed of your own circumstance. Although perhaps embarrassed isn’t the correct term: scared? Confused? “That’s who I’ve been dreaming about.”

“You’ve been dreaming about someone,” His hands find the photo, flipping it over once in his grasp to find a small date inscribed on the bottom corner. The scrawl almost illegible with foreign text accompanying the date, “from the nineteenth century?”

“I know it sounds crazy, I _know_ , but I’ve also met him too.” Repetition as if you’re trying to convince yourself too. “I got this photo from a psychic down the street,” and a handful of others but you didn’t feel like explaining everything yet. “She said if I had questions, I should come to you.” A rummaging around the bag slung around the back of your chair, the note she’d written crumpled as you’d lost it for a time and found it tucked away in the depths of your desk. “Also, to give you this.”

He takes the paper with his withered hands, unfurling it as he looks to read it. As the light from the window behind him shines onto him, and onto the paper you don’t see anything written onto it. It’s as if the paper’s blank.

After a moment of letting him read the contents, if there were any, you speak up again, “You are who she was talking about, right?”

“I am,” An attitude change, voice hardening as he pushes the glasses up the bridge of his nose after they’d slipped down after he’d tilted his head to read. “If my sister sent you here then I assume you must know of your,” he pauses to think of a correct word, “situation?”

“Sister?” Recalling the time she said she had a sister, not a brother. Although you could see the resemblance now that you take a more cautious look, “But I guess? I thought it was all some kind of joke.”

“A cruel one, maybe.” Lips pursing as the letter’s lowered onto the table, the blank page fully on display to you. “What exactly are you asking me to do?”

“Help?” Fingers tapping atop your leg, an impatient paranoia running cold through your veins despite the lack of air conditioning in the room. A small gust of wind washing over you from the cracked window on your left, “Your sister said you disguised yourself as a sleep specialist to help cursed-” the word feels vicious on your tongue, heavy and unnatural, “cursed people like me.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do much to aid you,” A sigh from him as you shift uncomfortably in your seat. Splinter now not the only pain twinging inside of you, “The curse the gods put on you is the same put on him, and it will not be until their divine pardon is given that you’ll cease to dream of lives prior. I can help with minor hexes and spells but this, I’m afraid, is out of my jurisdiction.”

“Then what do you suggest I do? I can’t plead with the gods, can I?”

“I’m afraid not,” The man glances to the photo once more before returning his gaze to you, “Even if it sounds unbearable, I recommend speaking to him again. It’s as much his burden as yours.”

The tears come after you’ve left the office, brushed passed the receptionist, down the flight of stairs and out of the building. The first one drags its way down your cheek, losing itself in the strands of your hair as you walk. Second, following the same path but diverting, dropping onto the dusty ground below. Everything lost in your borrowed car as you breathe in the sweltering humidity of the summer, choking on the air as you gasp for breaths to end this torment. A knock on your window, knuckles rapping against the layer of dust coating it. Gritty and dirty you’re surprised at how the hand has yet to bleed against the abrasive surface.

“I think you dropped this,” voice muffled as the photo is pressed to the glass, you could barely make out the silhouette due to the grime. A hitch in your throat as you come to the mortifying realization that someone has caught you vulnerable. Hands raising to your eyes to wipe away the humiliation you now feel. Window rolled down with the press of the button, the scratching screeches of the grains rubbing against the car as the glass disappears into the door.

“Hey.” The voice starts, cutting through the air.

You interrupt him before the first syllable of your name could even begin to leave his lips, “What are you doing here?”

“I was wondering if we could talk?” Kunhang stands, shifting his weight from foot to foot as you reach out and take the photograph from him. Head nodding towards the image he speaks, “I know it’s been a while since you’ve figured us out and Dejun’s an idiot who can’t explain anything. I’m sure you want answers.”

“Did Dejun send you?” You had half a mind to turn the key in the ignition and not hear the answer, even speaking his name was a stab to your heart, a burn to your lips.

“No one knows I’m here except for you,” A pause as he points up towards the verdant sky, “And, well, you know.”

Stomach dropping as soon as you turn the key into the lock of your apartment. It’s in shambles, everything thrown onto the floor from a previous childish rampage that you’d justified by claiming it was your own method of coping. Looking back onto it now you think the you of that morning just didn’t care. You still didn’t care, or know how to feel, but now you had to clean it up. A picture frame shattered, glass shards adorning your floor, eyes rolling at the picture you once cherished now lies mangled in the broken frame. Maybe this was cathartic, you were processing lifetimes of deceit. And your feelings towards him. Yet this violent outbreak of tantrums leaves you feeling more empty than satisfied.

“I’m sorry for the mess,” You apologize, turning to look at Kunhang, who’d trailed quietly behind you after you’d arrived at your complex. “Seulgi’s gone for the weekend so you shouldn’t have to worry about her coming in unannounced.”

“That’s a relief,” He offers you a small smile before his eyes trail down to the glass littering the floor. “Let me help you.”

A nod as you kneel down to look for the pieces, words spilling forth as you can’t seem to retain them for any longer. “Who was she? Dejun tried to explain but…”

Kunhang leans down to help pick up the pieces of glass splayed out in front of you, your eyes widening at the careless way he grabbed the shards without a wince. There’s no blood or cuts that you can see, “I’m not sure where he met her for the first time, I think it was some festival in town celebrating his brother of all things.”

“He has a brother?” Your own fingers treading lightly atop the floor as you seek out the remnants of the glass and wooden frame. Reaching out, you gingerly pick up the frame and set it atop the nearby side table, photograph too crumpled to see the face staring at you. You could hardly look at yourself in a mirror without seeing _her_ , never mind that pictures also brought along that occurrence.

“Xuxi,” he nods, standing to his feet and walking to the trash can nestled away in the corner of the kitchen. “I think you know him as Yukhei?” Hands sliding together as if to get the remaining particles of glass off his fingers.

“Oh,” A bite of your cheek as you move to raise yourself from the floor and discard your own pieces of glass into the bin. You motion for Kunhang to sit down in the living room, to which he rather gleefully accepts, plopping lackadaisically onto your sofa while you opt for the cushioned ottoman. You’re not sure how to feel about this intermixing of divine beings into your life unbeknownst to you, but it’s not as if you can object them, you can only hold them in distain. 

“Dejun is a pretty reserved person, I think you’ve seen that already. He’s quiet and doesn’t liked to be noticed, but this girl approached him first. Struck up a conversation and they soon found themselves lost in the nighttime because they’d spoken for too long.” Kunhang hums to himself as if thinking back on a memory of his own, “They complimented each other nicely, on the handful of occasions I met her she was pleasant enough. Cordial and everything that one would want out of a friend’s lover.” Eyes widening as he looks over to you, “Not that you don’t embody those same qualities, you’re just different. You’re not a copy of her in any sense other than physical.” A small cough, “Anyway, Dejun wanted to renounce his immortality to be with her, he’d seen the way people wither away and die and it all seemed to happen too fast. She was set to be married, but he wouldn’t allow it, so he stole her away to the Underworld for a time. And I’m not sure how well you’re versed on mythology or anything- but humans in the realm of the dead don’t tend to thrive. Deprived of the living she grew wearier and wearier of her time there and eventually asked Dejun to take her home, to conjure up another plan so that they could be happy together.

And he did, eventually. He called on Yukhei and I to help him out since he could trust no one else with such a Herculean task. And while I thought he was naively stupid to try and throw away immortality, I wasn’t going to say no. Yukhei on the other hand-” A purse of his lips as a small dismality shines in Kunhang’s eyes. “They’d always been close, they grew up with each other and while it seemed as if they were in a constant state of rivalry, they truly did care for one another. And if I thought Dejun was being a foolhardy idiot, Yukhei thought Dejun’s decision was effectively killing himself.”

There’s something playing behind Kunhang’s eyes, not expressly, but the wheels were turning, and you could see the slight furrow of his brow. It was difficult to make sense of this; it was as if he were telling a tall tale than of events that had transpired. “What happened?”

Driven from the past, Kunhang blinks and turns to you, offering a small smile. “Sorry, I was just thinking. But the morning that Dejun was meant to leave with you- her, Yukhei betrayed him. He sought out the aid of the other gods to prohibit him from finalizing his transition into mortality and ascent to the mortal realm. Yukhei had lied, saying that she had corrupted Dejun with mortal sin in a vain attempt to get them to believe his own untruths. And they did believe him, Dejun was effectively cast aside, and she set on a cyclical reincarnation to torment him and remind him that gods should never interfere with human affairs.

He never meant to look for you, but a part of his punishment was that your visage would follow him wherever he went.” Kunhang sits up, straightening his posture as if to tell you he was done speaking. “I know you probably hate him, but he’s never outright tried to hurt you. He’s wallowing in self pity and distancing himself from anything and anyone, I think he’s sleeping more often too which is never a good sign.”

“Doesn’t he sleep?” A tilt of your head, he’d slept the night you’d brought him home, you were certain of it.

“Not really,” A shake of Kunhang’s head as he pushes himself off your sofa. “Because he’s the god of Sleep he likes to live vicariously through the dreams of others; he likes to escape there whenever he’s feeling stressed or anxious. Dejun spent the entirety of 1888 passed out in the middle of some forest because he was too unwilling to process how much the world was changing.”

“That... Sounds like him,” Even if you hadn’t fully wanted to admit it, you could see him spending a year in isolation, it was the melodrama that oozed from him at times. “Thank you for telling me this Kunhang, it’s made everything a little bit more... easier to digest.”

A nod of his head, “I won’t tell him I came here, not that he’d listen to me anyways.”

“Actually,” Turning to him as he begins to move towards the doorway, “can you tell him? I think it’s probably about time I talk to him about this.”

Smile turning the corners of his mouth as he glances back to you, “I’ll let him know.”

**xvi.**

Nightmares smelled of copper, of the saltiness of sweat and tears and the adrenaline that came with the fear of something conjured by the subconscious. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, Dejun had discovered it as a child and hated the scent ever since. He hadn’t made any attempt to delve into your dreams, yet always found himself pulled into them whenever a nightmarish scene was playing out. Copper laced with sulfur as the dank caverns of the Underworld aligned his route. Gingerly taking a few steps, the sound echoing around the barren site, the only other sound was of you falling in step behind him. Heart twanging as he knows this memory all too well, this was the day he’d lost you and his sentence had started.

Before he’s able to take another step there’s a slight tug from behind, he turns to see that you’ve stopped moving. Eyes searching the space for some sort of recognition when both you and he already knew that there’d be none.

“Dejun,” a tone in your voice that wasn’t meant to be there. You sounded scared, helpless as you reach out for him once more. “Can we talk?”

Kunhang had told him, after one of his bouts of slumber, that he had gone to speak with you. As guilty as he felt for not being the one to explain himself fully, it felt as if that weight had been stripped from him. The circumstance was blinding, taking several centuries to lift the shroud of his own misfortune and grief. He had affirmed that he’d be over as fast as he could, anxious about seeing you after months of silence. Dejun finds you sitting on your couch, photos of an era gone splayed out in front of you, his footsteps gently creaking on the floor as he approaches, you turning to him with a small smile as you motion for him to sit.

“I still don’t know how to fully comprehend everything,” A sigh escaping you as you look to the photos adorning your table, the broken frame from the day prior mangled next to them. “And I’m not sure that I ever will. But I can’t be angry at you as this wasn’t your fault.”

Relief flooding through his system at your words, “If I could have told you sooner I would’ve. You never deserved this burden and I wish I could’ve stopped it from ever happening.” You’re not sure how long after he’d finished speaking that you take him into your arms, desiring to feel the warmth of a life evaded, to smell the peculiar scent of an old book and nutmeg that he seemed to emit from his very being.

**xv.**

The wind howls at your window, searching and clawing at the screen outside. It roars with a ferocity unseen on calm nights such as this, waking you from slumber and away from the dreams of the past that plagued you. As the dreams kept you lolling in and out of slumber, you decide that stirring from your tumultuous sleep ought to be the best decision of the moment. To clear your mind of the past and relish in the present.

“You can go back to sleep now; I can watch over you tonight and make sure you don’t dream of anything bad.” Dejun’s voice coos from beside you, his arm had been lazily draped atop your side, pulling you closer once he realized you were awoken by the ache of nightmares. As he speaks, you turn on your back so your head can rest upon his chest, your ear pressing against it– listening to his heartbeat. Stories from your childhood told you of heroes triumphant and those that hadn’t quite made it in the face of some dastardly foe. You could hope of a mundane life, of happiness and longevity but things seen and learned have taught you otherwise. This world was cold, made warm by those who cared for not only themselves but for a select few others as well.

It had been a month since you reconciled with Dejun, still coming to terms with your being and connection to him. He rarely leaves your side and you rarely ever leave his, finding some sort of palpable comfort whenever you’re in his presence. There’s a hesitance between you, tangible at times where you’re both afraid of saying something wrong or misinterpreting what the other’s trying to say. But that’s a given in most new relationships, you feel butterflies whenever you’re with him and you know he feels the same when you see him put on that goofy, nervous smile that was ever present these days. You try to be a source of comfort to him, as you found out early on in your friendship to him, that he was something of a worrier. Even as your relationship progressed into something more it remained a constant nuisance within him, despite your attempts to quell it.

Dejun’s teeth bite at the insides of his cheeks. For the longest time his life had traveled at a snail’s pace, overtly boring and lonely, a vagrant cast away in the waters of a choppy sea, taken in only by the dregs of the Underworld. But now that he has found a source of buoyancy in that dark ocean and it seemed as if others come to try and take it away as quickly as it had arrived.

“You know I’m not going to leave you alone; I’m never going to do that again.” You sense the worry; it emanates from him just as his warmth does. Turning to him fully, his arm falls away, allowing you some freedom of movement to see him properly, doused in the moonlight that seeps in from your window.

A breathy sort of laugh escapes his lips at your words, it wasn’t as if you’d uttered a joke or some witticism, so he wasn’t even sure why he’d done it in the first place. It was possibly due to the relief that you wouldn’t leave him alone but so much in the future. His now free hand moves to brush a few strands of hair out of your face to be tucked behind your ear only seconds later. 

Silence permeates the air once more as you pull away from his chest and drink in his appearance, somewhat marveling at how a creature such as he managed to ensnare you in this way. Dejun wants you to promise him that you’d keep those words, that, despite the inevitable dangers that this newfound relationship may bring, it would be one constant. It’s not that he didn’t believe you, by the gods he wanted to, but this world was never forgiving.

Dejun brings your hand to his lips and speaks quietly, the tenor of his voice vibrating on your fingertips, “Promise me, then.” He wants to reach up, pull you closer once more and plunge back into that feeling of the unknown as he drops your hand away. Yet he finds himself stopping the thought from coming to fruition, his eyes shut once more as he listens to the sound of the pair of you just living. Heartbeat, breaths, the tiniest movements of fabric, everything. There was just something so reassuring to him about being in your presence without the fear of divine intervention. Perhaps, in literal terms, it meant he wasn’t truly alone anymore.

Without an answer, you place your hands on either side of his face and pull him in for a brief, albeit tender kiss. The corners of your mouth twitch as you pull away, and for a short, fleeting moment Dejun looks and feels relatively at ease. “Only if you promise _me_ that you won’t hide anything else.” It felt as if the eggshells he had painstakingly sought out not to break had cracked, and him falling through that jagged layer meant nothing anymore.

Dejun takes one of your hands to rest on his chest, right where his heart lies under flesh and bone and sinew. His face inching closer, breath warm on your face as the moonlight dances on his features. “Of course, I promise,” his mouth finally finds your neck, brushing his lips against the velvety surface and placing small kisses with every inch he moves, repeating his vow between each peck. 

Something likened to euphoria runs hot through your veins, shooting through you from head to toe. You would hold those words close, locked away near all the things that made life a little less unexplainable. For words could stand the test of time when all other things wither and fade away, they sound bittersweet to your ears.

His kisses travel downwards, cascading to the edges of your nightshirt, to which he glances up at you with widened eyes to gain approval for his next actions. Your eyes lock with his and you vocalize your acceptance with a short, “Keep going.” Seconds later you find his hands trailing along the hem of your sweatshirt, playing with the fabric before you lift your torso to allow him better access to slide it over your head. Your hands move to the hem of his own shirt, repeating the process done unto yourself until his own shirt now lays discarded onto the floor. Fingers gently tracing over his shoulders, you hear his breath hitch in his throat as he leans forward to kiss you more deeply than before.

How fragile an affair such as yours came to realization would forever confound and haunt him, it was gray matter in a world of supposed black and white. If fate were to have spurned a different tale, in a different set of circumstances he wondered how your lives may differ from this. But ‘what if’s’ and ‘had I done’s’ were left in a hollow den in the crevasses of his mind. Although gods were never creatures who abided by the laws of human nature, they were wrought with the want of it. His body has a mind of its own, and if anyone ever told him that desire would force him to naturally act on consequence, sharing a bed with a human being, he wouldn’t have believed them just centuries ago. But it’s here, it’s concrete and real and he won’t fight it. Not tonight and he suspects, that with you, not ever.

When his hands travel down your sides you feel an electric current running through you, shivering when the cold air of your room hits your skin as your duvet is discarded to the end of the bed. “Xiao Dejun, you might just be the death of me.” A whisper into the frigid air as you relinquish yourself from his grasp, moving to straddle his hips between your thighs as you’re now almost sitting atop him.

“I hope not,” Hand moving to cup your breast, thumb gently tracing over your hardening nipple as he looks to you. A string of words falls from his lips, the language unknown as you tilt your head.

Your hands trailing down his chest, stopping right before the waistband of his sweatpants, “What did you say?”

He breathes out a contented sigh of relief as you gently roll your hips over his, not denying the presence of the hardness slowly making itself known below you as his hips involuntarily rock into yours, “You’re beautiful.” A smile on your lips as you lean down to place a kiss on his, his other hand reaching for your waist, squeezing you slightly as soon as it found its place. When you pull away, teeth biting your lower lip as you move your hips once more, causing his head to loll back with a small moan coming from deep within him. It may have just been the sweetest sound to ever grace your ears, heart pounding in your chest as you look down at him a shine in your eye not previously present. It only takes a few more movements before his hand falls from your breast and moves to mirror his other, squeezing your sides as he guides your actions along his clothed erection, his cheeks flush with enamorment.

By all things divine he shouldn’t be as malleable under your touch as he is. But he is a fool in love as are you. Careening into your hand as you place it upon his cheek, a huff of air from his lips as he sits up to face you, pressing a frenzy of kisses to your mouth, down your chin and to your neck, suckling marks that surely would show in the morning on the thin skin. It’s when you feel a curve of a smile curl onto his lips you find yourself flipped, your back now on the mattress as Dejun hovers over you, hand trailing towards the center of your arousal. Fingers tracing gentle circles, you move to press yourself into his touch, airy breath leaving you, “You’re such a tease.”

“Am I?” A question as he leans down, pressing several kisses onto your collarbone as his hand moves to slip into your pajama shorts. Fingers finding the slickness of arousal coating you, both a moan from his and your lips escapes the two of you as he begins to palm the tight bundle of nerves preceding your sex. Toes curling as you find his name escaping you, feeling the taught knot within your stomach begin to coil as he tentatively slides a finger into you, gauging your reaction by glancing up at you. Now your own breath hitching as he slowly begins to move his finger languidly in and out of you. His lips grazing over the now purpled skin of your collarbone, he looks to the shifting emotion traversing your face at his movements as he adds another finger to his motions. “So,” Several kisses to your jawline, “ _So_ pretty.”

Hand finding anchor in his free, you clasp your hand against his as your hips rise to follow his direction. “Dejun,” calling out to him as your lips clash wantonly together, subtle gasps of air leaving you as his pace quickens and brings you closer to ecstasy, “I need you.”

It’s all he needed to hear, his hand removed from pleasuring you as he pulls away, “Do you have any-?” Tongue swiping over his bottom lip as he glances to your night-table. You think it somewhat odd that an immortal being would have to worry about that, but you weren’t going to question it too much at this moment.

“In the bottom drawer,” Hand falling to the side of the bed, lazily pointing towards the side table.

Dejun’s warmth removed as he shifts and crawls across the bed to search for a condom, you slide your shorts down, kicking them away with your feet as you hear the drawer close and the sound of the wrapper being ripped open. He’s back over you seconds later, a kiss to your forehead before he speaks, “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

“If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have let it get this far,” Leaning your head upwards to catch his lips in a kiss, lingering ever so slightly as you feel him press up against your entrance. He pushes in slowly, allowing you time to adjust to the stretch as he peppers your face with kisses. His hands intertwining with yours as you tell him that it’s alright to move. Dejun begins to slowly rock himself into you, small pants escaping him as he gradually begins to increase his rhythm. The air thick with the sound of primal pleasure and the escapades of lover’s enjoyment, you unlink your hands from his to place them atop his shoulders as you widen your legs to let him hit deeper within you. Tears pricking at your eyes as now one oh his free hands moves to your clit, rubbing it intently to try and help bring you to your high.

“Are you close?” His voice low, sending chills down your spine as he whispers into your ear.

Lips bitten and bruised as you nod your head with a groaning of, “Yes.” Blood hot and racing to your head, thoughts only lingering on the frenzy running wild within you and on him, god-sent and ethereal as he pistons himself in and out of you, soft sounds of ecstasy tumbling like golden ichor from his lips.

“Can you hold out for me?” Another whisper as you feel yourself edging closer and closer to the cliffs of euphoria. The dusting of pink glowing on your cheeks as you nod your head, unable to vocalize your words for fear of the incoherency that may fall from you.

The sloppier movements that precede his high is what ends up sending you over the edge, clenching yourself around him as your head falls back onto the pillow, sweat beginning to trail down the side of your face as stars dance behind your eyes. “ _Fuck_ Dejun,” You breathe as he continues to push into you, chasing his own high, now palming at your breasts, occasionally tweaking one of your hardened nipples, causing you to squirm under him.

Dejun comes in a hectic wave of rapture, he rides out his high in a fervent bliss, with you in his grasp as his head lies in the crook of your neck and his forehead rests on your shoulder. Breaths heavy as his perspiration intermingles with yours as he finds your lips once more, hoping to convey what he could not vocally with it. Should the world come crashing down he wouldn’t care anything of it if you were in his arms. Because this isn’t a mere act of plain need of the flesh, void of barriers, or his hand wandering to warm, forbidden places. It’s a dialogue without many words, just kisses, touches, gentleness that elicits the sweetest sounds from you because all that matters is your closeness and proximity to him without having to fear anything else. “I love you,” post euphoric bliss settling into his features as he moves away, falling onto his back next to you.

“I love you too,” An explosion of warmth in your chest at his words, smile seemingly plastered onto your face.

**xvi.**

The sun shone in through the admittedly grimy windows of the diner, the smell of fresh coffee, eggs, bacon and toast overwhelming the underlying scent of floor cleaner as you slide into the booth, Dejun sitting across from you as he’d arrived some time before you. He passes you one of the flimsy laminated menus with a smile, “I already ordered something for you but if you want anything else just let me know.” You never thought gods would be the type to eat breakfast at a dingy diner in one of the more shadier parts of town. Yet Dejun had convinced you that he’d known the owner for years, he was some type of nymph, and made the best french toast you would ever have.

A shake of your head, “I think I’m alright with that.” And he hadn’t been lying, it _was_ the best french toast you’d ever had and you were debating on having seconds when the tinkling of bells behind you distracts you from your breakfast treat.

“I think that’s Kunhang,” Dejun asks as he stands and waves to catch the attention of the other, “He says he’s not a fan of human food but this might just be his kryptonite.” A quick glance to you, “Don’t let him know I said that though.”

Short laugh escaping you, “Don’t worry, I wont’t.”

As the other makes his way over, Dejun slips into your side of the booth with a shrug of his shoulders. Hands reaching for the white ceramic coffee mug he’d been nursing the whole time as Kunhang now sits across from you. “That’s a sight for sore eyes,” Kunhang nods at Dejun, “I don’t think I’ve seen you this happy since the early twenties.”

“I’ve got a reason for it now,” A brief look to you as his voice is drowned out by Kunhang yelling out his order to the cook in the back. There was a small window where you could peer through and see him at work, it was as if he was moving inhumanly fast. But you supposed it was because he was’t mortal.

“So,” Turning his attention back to the both of you, “Is there any reason why you’ve called me out on this lovely summer day? I just might’ve had plans.” His fingers dance atop the table in anticipation.

“Moral support?” You poise, biting into the last piece of french toast as a perplexed expression overcomes him.

“Moral support? What do you mean by- Oh.” Attention deterred as the bells to the shop ring aloud once again as another figure makes their way inside. Black-clad as always, the lanky figure glances carefully around the shop as his eyes settle on your table. “Yukhei.” Kunhang nods as the taller approaches.

“Kunhang,” Solemn tone as he looks down to Dejun, “Brother.”

“Xuxi.”

And then he looks to you, unable to let your name fall from his lips as the anguish he’d accumulated over the course of your hellish reincarnation cycle catches up to him. It was funny how it hadn’t affected his encounters with you up until now, maybe there still was some semblance of empathy locked away inside of him. Mouth parted as if he was about to begin speaking, you interrupt, “Why don’t you take a seat?” Gesturing to the empty spot next to Kunhang, he says nothing but complies with your request. It’s easy to tell he’s uncomfortable, Dejun takes a little bit of pleasure seeing this, now not the one meant to feel awkward by your presence.

“Did you want coffee? Breakfast?” Dejun asks as a waitress comes by to hand Kunhang his order of french toast, which he dives into, seemingly blocking the rest of you out of his mind as he was now soley focued on eating.

Yukhei’s foot tapping against the linolium floor with impatient anxiousness, “I’d like to know why you asked me out here.”

“Just wanted to chat, really.” Dejun nods as he takes a sip from the coffee mug, setting it back onto the plastic tabletop with a muffled clink. “Well, not me,” A head tilt to you, “she does.”

A small flash of a smile as you set your cutlery down onto your plate, the metal accidentally scraping across the cheap ceramic as you do. It sends a small chill down your spine as you look to Yukhei, who had begun to appear more confused than anything. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m not angry at you,” It was a strange way to broach the topic, “I think I can speak to the volumes of me beforehand when I say that. You wanted to protect your brother, I get that, even if you had to take drastic measures.” Maybe unfairly against you, but you didn’t have siblings, and lacked that bond that may have tied them together.

“ _Stupidly_ drastic measures,” Small scoff under Dejun’s breath as you move to gently nudge him in his ribcage with your elbow. He adjusts in his seat at your actions, straightening up to glare at the elder. “I may still not trust you fully, but I’d like to start on the path. I have missed you, Yukhei, but it’ll take time before we can ever get back to where we were.”

A stuttered cough from Kunhang, who seems to be choking after inhaling one of the strawberries that’d been decorating his plate. Hand hitting against his chest a few times, he takes a few deep breaths before speaking, “What exactly am I here for then? Last time I checked I’m not related to any one of you.” 

“You’re a friend, aren’t you?” You question, turning to tilt your head at him, “I’m not trying to force any of this on you but I think some sort of reconciliation might be good for everyone.”

Grumbling under his breath about knowing this wasn’t just a chance to get free food. “I think I’m fine on that front, it’s these two that might want to go see that therapist friend of yours. There’s literal centuries to unpack there.” Snickering as he looks to the two brothers, “They’ll come around. They always do.”

Maybe thirty minutes later, after small chatter and more french toast than you thought you’d ever be able to consume, the four of you make your way outside into the summer morning. There was an ease in the tension that had shown itself when all of you had sat together, an explanation of character, profuse apologies and more than a tear shed as secrets of a past came to light. Dejun’s hand in yours as you wait for the other two to exit the diner, “That went better than expected, didn’t it?”

“Moreso than I could’ve hoped,” He smiles to you, the golden rays of the morning light dancing along his dark locks. Had he looked any more ethereal you might’ve been blinded by the sight. Kunhang and Yukhei eventually meet up with the two of you, “Thanks for coming out, I think it was probably long overdue.”

“Hell I would’ve come out every week if you were offering to pay,” Kunhang sighs, his gaze caught on someone walking down the sidewalk.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” A roll of his eyes as you and he look to Yukhei, who was grabbing a cigarette out of his pants pocket.

“It was,” Searching for the word as he places the cigarette on his lips, igniting it with the lighter you’d seen the last time you’d spoken to him, “nice.” The moment of tranquility disrupted as the figure that Kunhang had been focusing on nears your group, walking up with a perceived sense of familiarity in his steps.

“Liu Yangyang, is that you?” Kunhang calls out, waving at the figure as he approaches. The rest of the group’s attention turned to the newcomer, it was a face you’d never seen before, but it seems as if everyone else knew who it was.

“The one and only,” Toothy grin as he looks to each of your faces. “It’s been a while, I hope you’re all doing well?” His eyes glancing down to your hand in Dejun’s.

“Better,” Dejun says, giving your hand a gentle squeeze. “What brings you here?”

“As the messenger of the gods I’ve come to do my job,” He nods, reaching into a bad he had slung around his shoulder, reaching inside of it and procuring a yellowed letter from its depths. “They’ve said to respond asap, so I wouldn’t leave them hanging. Now I’ve gotta run, unfortunately. Hopefully I’ll see you all again soon!” And with that he was off in the same direction he’d come, seeming to disappear in the haze of the morning once he’d walked far enough away.

“What is it?” Yukhei’s voice hardens as Dejun’s brow furrows as he tears opens and begins to read over the letter.

“It’s a summons,” Your eyes glancing over the paper as he hands it to Yukhei and Kunhang to scan over.

“Why in the hell does Qian Kun want to see you?” Yukhei scoffs as he finishes the letter, “ _And_ Dong Sicheng?”

“At least it’s not Ten,” Kunhang muses with a mutter as Dejun takes the letter back into his grasp, folding it in half as if he were hiding its contents.

“Who’re they?” You question, looking up at their faces as you wait for an answer. 

“Old gods,” Yukhei frowns, “Normally they never try and interfere with us but it looks like they’ve got something to say.”

“Is everything alright?” A look to Dejun, his eyes clouded as he ponders on the summons. Pulled from his thinking at your voice.

“Yeah,” a flicker of a smile as his hand holding the letter drops to his side and he places a kiss on your forehead, “I’m sure everything’s going to be alright.”


End file.
